A new peer60 study analyzing services offered to hospitals by HCAHPS vendors shows price, reporting functionality and customer service are all important features to their provider customers.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services uses Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores to gauge patient experience, and the results can affect their reimbursements by the federal government.
Six vendors -- Avatar, HealthStream, J.L. Morgan and Associates, National Research Corporation, PRC, and Press Ganey -- were examined, and while Press Ganey emerged as the dominant vendor, the playing field was more even when it came to which vendors customers were likely to recommend. Broken down by the type of facility, ambulatory facilities viewed their chosen vendor less favorably than others, with a fairly large discrepancy between them and the group with the highest recommendation score, hospitals with between 26-100 beds.
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Conventional wisdom suggests that a heavily regulated product like HCAHPS will put a premium on price as a feature, according to the report. While that conventional wisdom holds in many cases, some hospital leaders are less concerned with pricing than others, and they tend to pick different HCAHPS vendors. In particular, Avatar and PRC appear to cater to hospitals that are less concerned with pricing, although PRC logged much higher satisfaction scores. J.L. Morgan scored the highest in this area, and had high rates of satisfaction to match.
Ambulatory facilities are less price conscious than hospitals, the data found, but they're also less satisfied with pricing, and seem willing to settle for "a less robust solution."
When it comes to reporting benchmarks, different vendors provide results in unique formats with different options, providing them the opportunity to differentiate from one another. The report found that they've done so only to a limited degree. Satisfaction with reporting benchmarks was largely similar between vendors, though Avatar customers were less satisfied than others.
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No vendor achieved especially high levels of satisfaction when it came to customer service; directors of patient care who responded to the peer60 survey appeared less satisfied with this metric than chief nursing officers, clinical directors and other hospital leaders.
Many facilities have chosen HCAHPS that offer additional surveys that are more flexible and provide more useful information, and J.L. Morgan led the pack in this area, appearing to market itself to hospitals that prioritize these extra surveys. Avatar lagged in this area, with one of the lowest scores recorded across the report. Clinical directors appeared to put slightly more emphasis on having a diverse survey offering than other hospital officials.
Overall, peer60 suggested that all vendors featured in the survey have room to improve and innovate -- particularly when it comes to customers' satisfaction.
Twitter: @JELagasse