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CAHPS Clinician & Group Surveys (CG-CAHPS) Version 3.0 -Adult, Child

CBE ID
0005
Endorsement Status
1.1 New or Maintenance
Previous Endorsement Cycle
Is Under Review
No
Next Maintenance Cycle
Spring 2025
1.3 Measure Description

The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician & Group Survey 3.0 (CG-CAHPS) is a standardized survey instrument that asks patients to report on their experiences with primary or specialty care received from providers and their staff in ambulatory care settings over the preceding 6 months.

The CG-CAHPS 3.0 survey can be used in both primary care and specialty care settings. The adult survey is administered to patients aged 18 and over. The child survey is administered to the parents or guardians of pediatric patients under the age of 18. Patients who had at least one visit to a selected provider during the past 6 months are eligible to be surveyed.

CG-CAHPS Survey Version 1.0 was endorsed by NQF in July 2007 (NQF #0005) and version 2.0 received maintenance endorsement in early 2015. Version 3.0 was released in July 2015. The development of the survey is through the CAHPS Consortium and sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The survey is part of the CAHPS family of patient experience surveys and is available at https://cahps.ahrq.gov/surveys-guidance/cg/about/index.html

The Adult CG-CAHPS Survey 3.0 has 31 questions including one overall rating of the provider and 13 questions used to create these four multi-item composite measures of care or services provided:

1. Getting Timely Appointments, Care, and Information (3 items)
2. How Well Providers Communicate With Patients (4 items)
3. Helpful, Courteous, and Respectful Office Staff (2 items)
4. Providers’ Use of Information to Coordinate Patient Care (3 items)

The Child CG-CAHPS Survey 3.0 has 39 questions including one overall rating of the provider and 12 questions used to create these four multi-item composite measures of care or services provided:

1. Getting Timely Appointments, Care, and Information (3 items)
2. How Well Providers Communicate With Patients (4 items)
3. Helpful, Courteous, and Respectful Office Staff (2 items)
4. Providers’ Use of Information to Coordinate Patient Care (2 items)

        • 1.14 Numerator

          The CG-CAHPS Survey item and composites are often reported using a top box scoring method. The top box score refers to the percentage of patients whose responses indicated that they “always” received the desired care or service for a given measure. 

          The top box numerator for the Overall Rating of Provider is the number of respondents who answered 9 or 10 for the item, with 10 indicating “Best provider possible”. 

          For more information on the calculation of reporting measures, see 
          “Preparing Data from CAHPS® Surveys for Analysis” (AHRQ, 2017) accessible at
          https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/cahps/surveys-guidance/helpful-resources/analysis/preparing-data-for-analysis.pdf
          and the CAHPS Analysis Instructions accessible at https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/cahps/surveys-guidance/helpful-resources/analysis/2015-instructions-for-analyzing-data.pdf (updated June 2017).

        • 1.15 Denominator

          The measure’s denominator is the number of survey respondents. The target populations for the surveys are patients who have had at least one visit to the selected provider in the target 6-month time frame. This time frame is also known as the look back period. The sampling frame is a person-level list and not a visit-level list.

        • Exclusions

          Among eligible respondents, for a given item, respondents with a missing response is excluded. Among eligible respondents, for a composite measures, respondents who did not answer at least one item in the composite are excluded from the composite measure’s denominator.

        • 1.13a Data dictionary not attached
          No
        • Most Recent Endorsement Activity - OLD
          Endorsed Patient Experience and Function Spring Cycle 2019
          Initial Endorsement
          Last Updated
        • Steward
          Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
          Steward Organization POC Email
          Steward Organization Copyright

          CAHPS® is a registered trademark of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Unauthorized use of this mark is strictly prohibited.

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                Conceptual model for risk adjustment
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                Conceptual model for risk adjustment
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