ICH CAHPS Announcements

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Announcements

RTI International will be closed January 20, 2025
Other AnnouncementsPosted January 16, 2025

RTI International will be closed on January 20, 2025. The ICH CAHPS Coordination Team will respond to email and telephone inquiries that are received on that date after RTI re-opens on January 21, 2025.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team at 1-866-245-8083 or via email at ichcahps@rti.org if you have any questions.

Reminder: Only 2 Weeks before the Data Submission Deadline for the 2024 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey
Data SubmissionsPosted January 15, 2025

As a reminder, the deadline for submitting data files from the 2024 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey to the Data Center is at 5:00 PM ET on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, which is only 2 weeks away. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will not accept any data files after that date and time.

We strongly encourage vendors to begin submitting XML files as soon as possible following the end of data collection. Remember that vendors should submit their data files in time for them to correct and re-submit any files that do not pass the validation checks.

Please feel free to contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or call 1-866-245-8083 if you have any questions or need help with data submissions.

Reminder: Only 3 Weeks before the Data Submission Deadline for the 2024 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey
Data SubmissionsPosted January 8, 2025

As a reminder, data collection for the 2024 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey ends on Friday, January 10, 2025. The deadline for submitting data files from the 2024 Fall Survey to the Data Center is at 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, which is only 3 weeks away. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will not accept any data files after that date and time.

As XML files are uploaded to the ICH CAHPS Data Center, a series of validation checks are made, one of which is a check to ensure that a patient-level record is included on the XML file for every case that was sampled for a CCN. Please note the following:

If the number of cases you include on an XML file does not match the number sampled, an error or warning message will appear on your data submission report.
If the error message appears for one or more of your CCNs, please make sure that you have entered information about each sampled case on the XML file.

Also be reminded that survey vendors:

should submit their files as soon as possible to allow adequate time to correct any problems identified and re-submit the files before the deadline; and
can submit a file for a CCN as many times as needed; however, keep in mind that each time a file for a CCN is re-submitted, it overwrites the file that was submitted previously.

Please feel free to contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or call 1-866-245-8083 if you have any questions or need help with data submissions.

Reminder of Upcoming Deadline for Submitting Facility-Specific Questions for the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey for Approval
Other AnnouncementsPosted January 8, 2025

This is a reminder that ICH CAHPS Survey vendors must submit all facility-specific questions that they plan to add to the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey to the Coordination Team for review and approval. If any of your ICH facility clients are planning to add any new facility-specific questions to the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey, please send those questions and their proposed placement to the Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org before 5:00 PM ET on February 7, 2025.

Please note that facility-specific questions that were approved by the Coordination Team for use in previous survey periods do not need to be approved again unless the question wording or response options have changed. If changes have been made, please submit the changes by the February 7^th deadline.

The Coordination Team will accept facility-specific questions for review after the February 7, 2025 deadline; however, approval of those questions may not be granted in time for the questions to be included in the 2025 Spring Survey. Survey vendors should work with their client ICH facilities to decide on the use of new facility-specific questions and submit the questions to the Coordination Team as soon as possible to avoid a delay in approval.

Please contact the Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or by calling 1-888-245-8083 if you have any questions.

Reminder: The Deadline to submit the ICH CAHPS Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form for the 2025 Spring Survey is February 28, 2025
Facility Participation RequirementsPosted January 7, 2025

Survey vendors must notify the Coordination Team of any authorized ICH facilities who have closed or will be closing before the upcoming data collection period. This is done to ensure that a sample file will not be provided to the vendor for that upcoming survey period. For the 2025 Spring Survey, survey vendors must do this by completing and submitting the online Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form as soon as possible after learning that a client facility has closed or will be closing, and no later than 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025.

Vendors can access the Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form by logging into the website and choosing “Vendor Facility Closing Attestation” form, which is under the For Vendors tab at the top of the website’s home page. Once a Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form is submitted by a survey vendor, an email will be sent to both the currently authorized vendor and the facility’s Survey Administrator to notify the facility that the vendor has submitted the Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form on the facility’s behalf. If a facility or vendor receives this email and feels that the form has been submitted in error, they should contact the Coordination Team immediately.

If a vendor learns that a facility has closed or will be closing after this deadline and will not participate in the 2025 Spring Survey, both the vendor and the facility should contact the Coordination Team immediately for guidance on next steps.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team at 1-866-245-8083 or via email at ichcahps@rti.org if you have any questions or need more information about the Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form.

Authorizing a Survey Vendor for the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey
Facility Participation RequirementsPosted January 7, 2025

All in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities that are administering the ICH CAHPS Survey for the first time or are switching to a different survey vendor to administer the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey must update their vendor authorization on the ICH CAHPS website by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025.

If your organization will continue to use the same survey vendor that was used to administer the 2024 Fall Survey, you do not need to update the online vendor authorization form. However, you must update the online vendor authorization if any of the following apply:

Your facility is participating in the ICH CAHPS Survey for the first time during the 2025 Spring Survey; OR
Your facility is switching to a different survey vendor to administer the 2025 Spring Survey; OR
Your facility entered the 2024 Fall Survey as the last survey period for which the vendor would administer the survey when you originally submitted the authorization form.

If any of the above statements apply to your facility, you must update the online vendor authorization form for the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey on the ICH CAHPS website by the February 28, 2025 deadline.

ICH facilities that served 30 or more survey-eligible patients in calendar year 2024 must administer both the 2025 Spring and Fall Surveys to be compliant with CMS’s quality reporting requirements. If the online vendor authorization form is not updated by the deadline, a sample will not be provided to a survey vendor, which means the 2025 Spring Survey cannot be administered.

The steps for authorizing a vendor on the ICH CAHPS website are as follows:

Log in to the ICH CAHPS website here.
From your personal dashboard, click “Authorize a Vendor.” The system will then take you to the Authorize a Vendor page.
From the “Select Action” drop-down list on the Authorize a Vendor page:
- If authorizing a vendor for the first time: Select the “Select a vendor for the first time” option.
- If changing/switching to a different vendor: Select the “Switch to a different vendor” option.
Select the name of your survey vendor from the vendor drop-down list.
Select the Beginning Survey Period for your new vendor. In this instance, you would select "2025 Spring Survey."
Do not enter an end date for your survey vendor unless you know that you will not be using this vendor beyond the 2025 Spring Survey.
Select the CCN(s) of the ICH facility (or facilities) to which the authorization applies.
Click the “Submit” button.

Please note the following:

No changes to vendor authorizations will be accepted for the 2025 Spring Survey after 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025.
If a facility has closed or will be closing and knows it will not be participating in the 2025 Spring Survey, please request that your survey vendor submit a Vendor Facility Closing Attestation Form on the ICH CAHPS website by this February 28, 2025 deadline. This will ensure that a sample file will not be provided to the vendor for the upcoming survey period. Vendors are encouraged to confirm with their facility contacts prior to this deadline that the facility is open and operating as expected.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Survey Coordination Team at 1–866–245–8083 or via email at ichcahps@rti.org if you have any questions.

The 2025 ICH CAHPS Survey Facility Non-Participation Form
Facility Participation RequirementsPosted January 6, 2025

Please note that the 2025 ICH CAHPS Survey Facility Non-Participation Form is now available on the ICH CAHPS website. To access this form, log in to the website using your user credentials and choose “Facility Non-Participation Form” under the For Facilities menu.

As noted in an email message sent to in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities on January 6, 2025 and posted under the Quick Links menu on the ICH CAHPS website’s home page, all ICH facilities must determine whether they will be required to administer the ICH CAHPS Survey in calendar year (CY) 2025 by counting the number of survey-eligible patients they served in CY2024.

ICH facilities that determine that they are not required to administer the 2025 ICH CAHPS Surveys and those that choose not to administer the surveys must complete and submit the 2025 ICH CAHPS Facility Non-Participation Form on the website.

ICH facilities should note the following:

The Facility Non-Participation Form is an annual form that is valid only for the year in which it was submitted. ICH facilities that submitted the Facility Non-Participation Form in CY2024 must submit the 2025 Facility Non-Participation Form if they do not plan to administer the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring and Fall Surveys.
Submission of the Facility Non-Participation Form only alerts the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team that the facility does not wish for a sample file to be provided to their authorized vendor for the current calendar year; it does not affect compliance, which is determined on an annual basis by the ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP) team.
Once the Facility Non-Participation Form is submitted, any existing vendor authorization for the submitted facility is removed from the ICH CAHPS website. This means that if at any point in the future the submitted facility wishes to participate in the ICH CAHPS Surveys, the designated ICH CAHPS Survey Administrator will need to authorize a survey vendor for the facility.
Facilities certified after December 31, 2024 are not required to complete and submit the online Facility Non-Participation Form, unless they are registered with an authorized vendor on the ICH CAHPS website.

The deadline to submit the 2025 Facility Non-Participation Form is 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team at 1-866-245-8083 or via email at ichcahps@rti.org if you have any questions or need more information about the Facility Non-Participation Form.

Participation in the 2025 ICH CAHPS Surveys
Facility Participation RequirementsPosted January 6, 2025

In-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities that served 30 or more survey-eligible patients in calendar year (CY) 2024 must administer the In-center Hemodialysis CAHPS (ICH CAHPS) Survey in the Spring and Fall of CY2025 to comply with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) quality reporting requirements for the 2027 payment year.

All ICH facilities should read this announcement in its entirety to determine whether they are required to participate in the ICH CAHPS Survey in CY2025 and if so, review the steps that need to be taken.

Determining Whether Participation in the CY2025 ICH CAHPS Surveys is Required

To determine whether your ICH facility (CCN) is required to participate in the ICH CAHPS Surveys in CY2025, count the number of survey-eligible patients your facility served in CY2024. Your count must include hemodialysis patients who:

were 18 years old or older as of December 31, 2024;
were alive as of December 31, 2024;
received hemodialysis on an outpatient basis from your facility for 3 consecutive months or longer at some point in CY2024;
are not currently receiving hospice care;
were not receiving dialysis care at a nursing home or other skilled nursing facility where they lived (as opposed to traveling to an ICH facility); and
were not living in a long-term facility such as a prison or jail as of December 31, 2024.

Please note the following important details when counting your survey-eligible patients:

Patients who receive home or peritoneal dialysis are not eligible to participate in the ICH CAHPS Survey; therefore, do not include those patients in your count of survey-eligible patients.
If a patient resides in a nursing home/skilled nursing facility but travels to an ICH facility for dialysis, they are eligible to participate and should be counted as survey-eligible; however, if a patient receives dialysis in the nursing home/skilled nursing facility where they reside, they are not eligible.

ICH facilities should note that the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team DOES NOT have information about the number of survey-eligible patients a facility served in CY2024. Therefore, each ICH facility is responsible for determining whether it is required to administer the semiannual 2025 ICH CAHPS Surveys.

In addition, ICH facilities that received Medicare certification after December 31, 2024 are not required to participate in the ICH CAHPS Survey in CY2025.

For Facilities That Are NOT Required To Participate

ICH facilities that served 29 or fewer survey-eligible patients in CY2024 are not required to participate in the ICH CAHPS Surveys in CY2025. However, all such facilities can choose one of the following four options:

Option 1. Administer the surveys in 2025 following all of the ICH protocols and procedures described in the ICH CAHPS Survey Administration and Specifications Manual;
Option 2. Administer the survey using a third-party vendor but not following the ICH CAHPS protocols and procedures;
Option 3. Administer the survey themselves, instead of using a third-party vendor; however, if any changes are made to the survey, it cannot be referred to as a CAHPS Survey; or
Option 4. Choose not to administer the survey at all.

If a facility that served 29 or fewer survey-eligible patients in CY2024 chooses Option 1, the ICH facility must be registered on the ICH CAHPS website and a vendor must be authorized. A patient sample will be provided to the facility’s authorized ICH CAHPS Survey vendor for both the 2025 Spring and Fall Surveys. The surveys must be conducted according to all ICH CAHPS Survey protocols and procedures, which include the following:

Using a CMS-approved ICH CAHPS Survey vendor to administer the survey on its behalf;
Administering both the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring and Fall Surveys;
Adhering to the ICH CAHPS Survey administration procedures and protocols described in the ICH CAHPS Survey Administration and Specifications Manual when administering the survey; and
Submitting an ICH CAHPS Survey data file for each survey period to the ICH CAHPS Data Center.

If a facility chooses Option 2 or Option 3, patient samples will not be provided to a vendor (Option 2) or a facility (Option 3), nor will any submitted data files be accepted by the Data Center for these options. The ICH facility will be responsible for either working with a survey vendor (if choosing Option 2) or within their own organization (if choosing Option 3) to select the samples for the survey that will be conducted and for conducting all other aspects of the survey.

Please note: Because facilities implementing Option 2 or Option 3 will not submit an ICH CAHPS Survey data file to the Data Center, their collected survey data will not be analyzed for official ICH CAHPS public reporting purposes, nor will the administration of these surveys be used to determine ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP) compliance.

Facility Non-Participation Form

If an ICH facility chooses Option 2, Option 3, or Option 4, the facility must complete and submit a 2025 ICH CAHPS Facility Non-Participation Form, which is an online form that is available on the ICH CAHPS website (available under the For Facilities tab once the user logs in to the website). ICH facilities should note the following:

The Facility Non-Participation Form is an annual form that is valid only for the year in which it was submitted. ICH facilities that submitted the Facility Non-Participation Form in CY2024 must submit the 2025 Facility Non-Participation Form if they do not plan to administer the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring and Fall Surveys.
Submission of the Facility Non-Participation Form only alerts the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team that the facility does not wish for a sample file to be provided to their authorized vendor for the current calendar year; it does not affect compliance, which is determined on an annual basis by the ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP) team.
Once the Facility Non-Participation Form is submitted, any existing vendor authorization for the submitted facility is removed from the ICH CAHPS website. This means that if at any point in the future the submitted facility wishes to participate in the ICH CAHPS Surveys, the designated ICH CAHPS Facility Survey Administrator will need to authorize a survey vendor for the facility.
Facilities certified after December 31, 2024 are not required to complete and submit the online Facility Non-Participation Form, unless they are registered with an authorized vendor on the ICH CAHPS website.

If your organization does not plan to administer the ICH CAHPS Surveys in 2025, you must complete and submit the 2025 Facility Non-Participation Form by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025.

For Facilities That ARE Required To Participate

ICH facilities that served 30 or more survey-eligible patients in CY2024 must administer the 2025 ICH CAHPS Spring and Fall Surveys to comply with quality reporting requirements for the 2027 payment year.

For Facilities that Administered the ICH CAHPS Survey in CY2024

A sample file will be provided to the survey vendor that is currently authorized on the ICH CAHPS website. If an ICH facility plans to use a different ICH CAHPS Survey vendor than was used in 2024, the facility must update its vendor authorization on the ICH CAHPS website before 5:00 PM Eastern Time on February 28, 2025. Click Here for instructions on how to change the online vendor authorization.

For Facilities that have Never Administered the ICH CAHPS Survey

To participate in the survey for the first time, ICH facilities must do the following, if they have not already done so.

Select and contract with one of the ICH CAHPS Survey vendors that have been approved by CMS. The list of CMS-approved ICH CAHPS Survey vendors is available on the ICH CAHPS website: https://ichcahps.org/General-Information/Approved-Survey-Vendors.
Designate a staff member to be the facility’s ICH CAHPS Survey Administrator (SA). For more information about the role of the ICH CAHPS SA, see information provided in Chapter III of the ICH CAHPS Survey Administration and Specifications Manual, which is available on the ICH CAHPS website: https://ichcahps.org/Survey-and-Protocols.
Register on the ICH CAHPS website: https://ichcahps.org/For-Facilities/Facility-User-Registration. When registering, your facility’s designated SA will create user credentials (username and password) that will allow him or her to access the private links on the ICH CAHPS website.
Complete the online “Authorize a Vendor” form on the ICH CAHPS website by February 28, 2025 to authorize your survey vendor to collect and submit ICH CAHPS Survey data on your facility’s behalf.

Closed Dialysis Facilities

We know that dialysis facilities sometimes close; however, the Coordination Team does not know when these closures occur. Facilities must notify their vendors of any facility closures so that we do not include closed facilities in the sample provided to vendors. For the 2025 Spring Survey, facilities must inform vendors of any known closed facilities by February 28, 2025.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team at 1-866-245-8083 or via email at ichcahps@rti.org if you have any questions or need more information about the 2025 ICH CAHPS Surveys.

ICH CAHPS: Vietnamese Survey Materials for 2025 Spring
Changes to Survey MaterialsPosted December 18, 2024

As was announced in early December 2024 (ICH CAHPS: Vietnamese to be offered as an Official Survey Language Starting with the 2025 Spring Survey), the ICH CAHPS Survey and related materials will now be available in Vietnamese beginning with the 2025 Spring Survey. The following ICH CAHPS Survey materials in Vietnamese are now posted on the ICH CAHPS website:

Materials posted to the “Survey Materials” page here:

ICH CAHPS Cover Letters 1 and 2
Mail Survey
Supplemental Questions
OMB Disclosure Notice
Waiting Room FAQs

Vendor organizations that plan to administer the ICH CAHPS Survey in Vietnamese in a future survey period should contact the Coordination Team to receive versions of the letters with the CMS logo.

As a reminder, the ICH CAHPS Survey XML data layout file is also being revised to include the addition of Vietnamese for the Survey Language (completed) data variable in the Patient Administrative data record. Therefore, all survey vendors must update their XML before the July 30, 2025 data submission deadline for the 2025 Spring Survey. By May 2025, the ICH CAHPS Survey data submission tools (Schema Validation Tool and Data Submission Tool) will be updated to reflect the addition of this new survey language. Announcements will be posted on the website when the revised tools are available.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or call toll-free at 1-866-245-8083 if you have any questions.

RTI International will be closed December 25, 2024 and January 1, 2025
Other AnnouncementsPosted December 17, 2024

RTI International will be closed on December 25, 2024 and January 1, 2025. We will also have limited availability on December 24. The ICH CAHPS Coordination Team will respond to email and telephone technical assistance inquiries that are received on those dates as soon as possible.

Please contact the Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or call 1-866-245-8083 if you have any questions.

Happy Holidays!

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