NC Medicaid has released the results of the latest Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys. CAHPS is a patient experience survey that serves as a national standard for measuring and reporting respondents’ experiences with their health care. NC Medicaid administers the CAHPS surveys to adult and child Medicaid beneficiaries to understand the Medicaid beneficiary experience and inform improvements in care. The full report and a two-page summary are available.
This is the first time North Carolina has administered the CAHPS surveys since the start of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Medicaid respondents were contacted for participation in the 2021 CAHPS survey between April 9, 2021, and Aug. 15, 2021, and were asked to think about services received in the past six months when answering all survey questions. Data from the 2019 survey were compared to 2021 to see how responses have changed from pre- to mid-pandemic.
CAHPS allows states to include supplemental questions that are fielded with the standard survey questions. For 2021, NC Medicaid decided to devote the supplemental questions to gaining insight into patient experiences with the telehealth services offered due to the pandemic.
Key findings include:
- Overall health and mental health ratings did not change appreciably between 2019 and 2021, with the exception of child mental health, which declined slightly during the public health emergency.
- Both adults and children were less likely to use non-emergency care in 2021, but there were no differences across years in the ability to access care when needed.
- The majority of respondents who were offered telehealth chose to use it.
For more information, please visit the NC Medicaid Quality Management and Improvement webpage.
Contact
NC Medicaid Contact Center: 888-245-0179