When selecting samples for the ICH CAHPS Survey, the Coordination Team uses patient-level information on the CROWNWeb (CW) database and excludes patients that do not meet survey-eligibility criteria, such as patients who reside in nursing homes (also known as skilled nursing facilities), if this is readily known. However, because CW does not contain an explicit indicator that the patient lives in a nursing home, this determination is usually made by vendors during the ICH CAHPS data collection period.

Some vendors have asked for guidance regarding how to handle the situation where the telephone interviewer reaches a nursing home when trying to call a sample patient. Currently, the interviewer has to determine whether a sample patient:

lives in skilled nursing home and therefore receives dialysis at the nursing home (ineligible for the survey), lives in a rehabilitation section or in an assisted living facility (eligible for the survey), or only works at the nursing home but lives elsewhere (eligible for the survey)....

As Hurricane Florence quickly approaches the East Coast, RTI International, which is headquartered in North Carolina, could experience intermittent power outages once the hurricane makes landfall on Thursday, September 13, 2018 and in the days after.

The ICH CAHPS Survey Coordination Team will continue to respond to all email and telephone technical assistance inquiries as quickly as possible, but please note that there may be a delay in our response, should we experience a power loss.  We thank you in advance for your patience during this time.

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

This announcement includes a list of the data quality issues that the Coordination Team (CT) detected in the data from the 2018 Spring Survey and issues we observed during site visits to survey vendors during the 2018 Spring Survey. As you prepare for the 2018 Fall Survey data collection period, please apply appropriate quality control measures so that you can detect and avoid these errors and data problems in all upcoming survey periods.

Please contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email at ichcahps@rti.org or call (866) 245-8083 if you have any questions about any of the information provided below.

Data Quality Reminders

2018 Spring data submitted by vendors looked great! The one general issue found involved the assignment of final disposition codes.

Check Assigned Disposition Codes. Survey vendors should make sure that the correct final disposition codes are assigned to all sample cases. Within 2 to 3 weeks after the data collection...

This is a reminder that all in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities that are switching to a different ICH CAHPS Survey vendor to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey must change their vendor authorization on the ICH CAHPS website by 5:00 PM Eastern Time TOMORROW, August 31, 2018.

Please note that ICH facilities must update the online vendor authorization only if the following applies.

Your facility is participating in the ICH CAHPS Survey for the first time during the 2018 Fall Survey; OR Your facility is switching to a different survey vendor to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey; OR Your facility entered the 2018 Spring Survey as the last survey period for which the vendor would administer the survey when you originally submitted the authorization form. If your organization will continue to use the same ICH CAHPS Survey vendor that was used to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey, you do not need to update the online vendor authorization form.

If any...

This is a reminder to all in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities that the deadline for changing your vendor authorization on the ICH CAHPS Web site is 5:00 PM Eastern Time on August 31, 2018. Please note you must update the online vendor authorization only if the following applies.

Your facility is participating in the ICH CAHPS Survey for the first time during the 2018 Fall Survey; OR Your facility is switching to a different survey vendor to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey; OR Your facility entered the 2018 Spring Survey as the last survey period for which the vendor would administer the survey when you originally submitted the authorization form. If your organization will continue to use the same ICH CAHPS Survey vendor that was used to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey, you do not need to update the online vendor authorization form.

If any of the above statements apply to your facility, you must update the online vendor authorization form for the 2018 ICH...

To better assist ICH CAHPS Survey vendors, the Coordination Team has implemented an automated email to vendors when a facility adds an end date for that vendor on their Vendor Authorization Form. The automated email will list the CCN(s) that updated their Vendor Authorization Form with an end date. If vendors are not aware of this end date, which indicates that the facility will no longer be contracting with the vendor for the ICH CAHPS Survey, we encourage you to reach out to your facility contact to ensure that the end date was not added in error.

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

This is a reminder that ICH CAHPS Survey vendors must submit all facility-specific supplemental questions that they plan to add to the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey to the Coordination Team for review and approval. If any of your in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facility clients are planning to add any new facility-specific supplemental questions to the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey, please send those questions and their proposed placement to the Coordination Team via e-mail at ichcahps@rti.org on or before 5:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on August 10, 2018.

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 questionnaire wording or response options have changed.

The Coordination Team will accept facility-specific supplemental questions for review after the August 10, 2018 deadline; however, approval of those questions may not be granted in time for the questions...

All in-center hemodialysis (ICH) facilities that are switching to a different ICH CAHPS Survey vendor to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey must change their vendor authorization on the ICH CAHPS website by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on August 31, 2018. Please note that you must update the online vendor authorization only if the following applies.

Your facility is participating in the ICH CAHPS Survey for the first time during the 2018 Fall Survey; OR Your facility is switching to a different survey vendor to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey; OR Your facility entered the 2018 Spring Survey as the last survey period for which the vendor would administer the survey when you originally submitted the authorization form. If your organization will continue to use the same ICH CAHPS Survey vendor that was used to administer the 2018 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey, you do not need to update the online vendor authorization form.

If any of the above statements apply to your facility, you must update the online vendor authorization form for the 2018 ICH CAHPS Fall Survey on the ICH CAHPS website by the August 31st 2018 deadline. ICH facilities that served 30 or more survey-eligible patients in calendar year 2017 must administer both the 2018 ICH CAHPS Spring and Fall Surveys to be compliant with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 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 2018 Fall Survey cannot be administered.

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The ESRD Prospective Payment System (PPS) proposed rule for calendar year 2019, which was published in the Federal Register on July 19, 2018, is now available here.

The deadline for submitting data files from the 2018 ICH CAHPS Spring Survey to the Data Center is at 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 25, 2018, which is 1 week from today. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will not accept any data files after that date and time.

We strongly encourage vendors who have not submitted an XML file for any of their facility clients to begin submitting as soon as possible. Remember that vendors must submit their data files in time to correct and re-submit any files that do not pass the overnight validation checks.

Please feel free to contact the ICH CAHPS Coordination Team via email or through the toll-free number if you have any questions or need help with data submissions.