HCAHPS Survey
The standardized national patient satisfaction survey (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) administered to a random sample of discharged hospital patients, producing publicly reported patient experience scores.
HCAHPS Survey is a term from U.S. hospital cost and quality reporting — the field that produces the CMS Hospital Compare program, the Medicare Inpatient Payment files, and the patient-facing tools built on top of them. The definition below covers what the term means in CMS files, what it does not mean, and how it interacts with the other measures CMS publishes. On the LakeQuality value rubric, HCAHPS Survey is one of the inputs (directly or indirectly) to the combined cost-and-quality grade. Understanding how the term is computed at CMS — what counts and what does not — is part of reading hospital pages defensibly.
Each hospital page on LakeQuality surfaces the specific HCAHPS Survey value for that facility (when CMS reports one), so the general definition here translates into a concrete data point on the per-hospital pages you actually use.
How It Works
HCAHPS (pronounced "H-caps") was the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients' perspectives on hospital care, developed jointly by CMS and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and launched in 2006. Every hospital participating in Medicare IPPS must administer the HCAHPS survey to a random sample of adult inpatients with at least one overnight stay and report results quarterly to CMS. The survey contains 29 questions, 19 of which produce the 10 publicly reported measures: communication with nurses, communication with doctors, responsiveness of hospital staff, communication about medicines, discharge information, care transition, hospital environment cleanliness, hospital environment quietness, pain management (replaced in 2018 with communication about pain), and overall rating of the hospital (0-10). Results are reported as "top box" percentages: the percent of patients giving the most positive response. National top-box medians run near 80% for nurse communication, 82% for doctor communication, 66% for staff responsiveness, 64% for medicine communication, 87% for discharge information, 52% for care transition, 75% for cleanliness, 63% for quietness, and 72% for overall rating (9-10 out of 10). HCAHPS results feed the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program with 25% weight in the Person and Community Engagement domain, creating direct Medicare payment consequences for patient experience performance. They also feed the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating with 22% weight. Hospitals have invested heavily in patient experience programs: hourly rounding, bedside shift reports, service recovery protocols, noise reduction initiatives (HUSH protocols), and Press Ganey or NRC Health analytics. Surveys are mailed or phoned to a random sample with target response rates of at least 300 completes per year; actual response rates have declined from around 33% in 2008 to near 20% by 2024.
Related Terms
- CMS Star Rating (Hospital Overall Rating), A 1-to-5 star rating assigned by CMS to each hospital based on 46+ quality measures, covering mortality, safety, readmissions, patient experience, and timely care.
- Value Score, HospitalCostData's proprietary A-F grade combining price (40%), quality rating (40%), and patient outcomes (20%), measuring whether a hospital delivers good care at a fair price.
- Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, A letter grade (A-F) assigned twice yearly to U.S. hospitals by The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by large employers, based on 30+ patient safety measures.
- Readmission Rate, The percentage of patients who return to the hospital within 30 days of discharge for the same or related condition, a key quality metric tracked by CMS.
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About This Definition
This definition is part of the HospitalCostData Hospital Pricing Glossary, 47 terms explaining hospital costs, quality ratings, and healthcare billing. Written for patients, journalists, researchers, and healthcare professionals.