Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®)

This web page introduces the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) and resources that are available to researchers. CAHPS® is widely used to monitor and evaluate the relative performance of managed care health plans and compare managed care plans to fee-for-service health care. Medicare CAHPS® now also obtains performance and consumer experience information of enrollees in Medicare prescription drug plans. Results of Medicare CAHPS® are used by CMS to inform the Medicare Compare tool.

Available Medicare CAHPS® Data | Requesting Medicare CAHPS® Data
CAHPS® Data Documentation | Available Non-Medicare CAHPS® Data
CAHPS® Research Projects and Reports

Available Medicare CAHPS® Data

Survey results from the Medicare CAHPS® are organized into several separate data files. CAHPS® data are available on CD-ROM and include the following:

Fee-For-Service - 2000-2004
Medicare Advantage - 1998-2005
MA Disenrollment / Reasons - 1998-2005
Combined MA Prescription Drug (MA PD), MA Only, Stand Alone PD, and FFS Only - 2006

NOTE: Access to these Medicare data files must be obtained from CMS.

Requesting Medicare CAHPS® Data

For Medicare CAHPS® data, submit a Research Identifiable File (RIF) request packet to the Division of Privacy, Compliance Data Development, at CMS. Address a written request letter (see sample) to the Division Director and describe (1) the source of funding, (2) study title, (3) study purpose, (4) type of data (e.g. MA, FFS, Combined MA, MA PD, Stand Alone PDP, and FFS Only (2006)), and (5) survey year(s) requested.

CAHPS® Data Documentation

(Data Documentation is sometimes referred to as data dictionaries, file layouts, and data layouts)

All CAHPS® data are collected using standardized questionnaires that measure plan performance.
The CAHPS family of survey tools is available by download in English or Spanish from the AHRQ web site. These survey tools are dually formatted in HTML, Microsoft Word, or Adobe® Portable Document Format to accommodate most users.
Medicare CAHPS® file record layouts are available from CMS. ResDAC can assist with requesting these.

Available Non-Medicare CAHPS® Data

The National CAHPS® Benchmarking Database (NCBD) is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) and includes five years (1998-2007) of CAHPS survey results representing 100,000 respondents per year from the commercial, Medicaid, and SCHIP populations. The NCBD is used to compare planned performance across different sponsors. A sponsor is an entity, public or private, that implements CAHPS®. The NCBD does not make CAHPS® results for the Medicare population available to researchers.

For NCBD CAHPS® data, submit a written formal request that includes the items listed on the NCBD CAHPS website. NCBD research files are available free of charge on CD-ROM.

For more information on CAHPS® go to the AHRQ CAHPS® website.

CAHPS® Research Projects and Reports

The Project Profiles website includes a brief description of investigator initiated research projects currently underway.
The NCBD Chartbooks contains aggregate results of the CAHPS® surveys.
For survey results from the Medicare CAHPS Medicare Advantage, Fee-for Service, and Disenrollment Reasons projects (2006), please see CMS’s CAHPS Reports. Several reports highlight differential results by race/ethnicity.

Last Modified August 5, 2008