NCQA kickstarts patient feedback program for medical home

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has recently developed the Distinction in Patient Experience Reporting program to help practices capture feedback through a newly developed Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) patient-centered medical home (PCMH) survey.

The program details include:

• Practices must use an NCQA-certified vendor to ensure a standardized method of data collection and reporting. A list of certified vendors will be available on the NCQA website in December, the Washington, D.C.-based organization stated.
• NCQA-recognized practices, or practices applying for recognition, are eligible for the distinction. All practices may submit data, but may not be eligible for the distinction.

The distinction is effective for one year after NCQA receives the practice's data, the organization added. Practices must submit data annually (through the vendor) to maintain distinction. Practices have the option of submitting data during both data submission periods, but it is not required.

There are two data submission periods per year; the first is April 2012 and the second is September 2012.

Submitted data will be used to develop a benchmarking database that will allow comparison across practices. In addition to earning distinction and being listed in directories as having distinction, practices will receive credit in PCMH 2011, NCQA concluded.

For more information on the program, click here.