As elements of the Accountable Care Act are being implemented, improving patient satisfaction has become an important priority for the specialty of hospital medicine. Specifically, under the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) program, a portion of a hospital’s Medicare reimbursement dollars (1% in fiscal-year 2013, growing to 2% in fiscal-year 2017) are at risk. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will use weighted domains to calculate this “at risk” reimbursement, with 30% of the total based on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey measuring patient experience, or satisfaction.

One of the goals of SHM’s Practice Management Committee in 2011 was to provide additional support to the HM community with regard to patient satisfaction. To that end, the committee came up with a series of questions that address the following high-level topics about patient satisfaction surveys:

• The questionnaire;
• The methodology;
• Reports;
• Vendor support; and
• Organization.

To learn more about how to access information from your hospital’s patient satisfaction survey vendor, visit www.hospitalmedicine.org/pm.