PAHAS Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Provider After-Hours Access Survey?
The telephone survey documents after-hours physician availability and patient access to appropriate emergency and urgent care information. The after-hours phone calls are completed for up to fifty primary care office sites in each of the participating provider organizations. These after-hours calls will supplement access information obtained from the PAS project.
Who pays for the survey and what are the deliverables?
A designated number of health plans will equally share the costs for fielding this survey and receive a data file containing individual call outcomes for each phone interview attempted or completed. Provider organizations will receive a standardized report containing group-specific and comparative results; they will also receive a file with raw data from each interview or attempted interview.
Where do you get the physician contact information from and how do you determine which physicians to call?
Groups are invited to register for the After-Hours Survey as part of the Patient Assessment Survey (PAS) registration process. The same data file submitted to the PAS Survey Vendor will also be used to draw the sample of primary care offices for the After-Hours Survey. Physicians with a PCP flag will be included in the After Hours sample data.
A target of 50 completed primary care physician surveys are attempted per physician group. A random sample will be drawn to allow completion of 50 calls per group. If a phone number appears more than once in a particular sample set, the vendor will call each unique number once if an automated response is received. If a person answers, they will verify that response for each physician listed in the sample is the same and record any differences.
Physician offices may be considered ineligible for participation in the survey if the physician is deceased, no longer in practice (at that location); on an extended leave of absence, or incorrectly identified as a PCP. Offices are also excluded if the office is no longer open at the phone number listed or the phone number is incorrect.
How are the results scored and reported?
Responses are categorized based on predetermined (by the CCHRI Provider After-Hours Project Committee) values that also determine if the response will qualify as an appropriate response. Results are summarized and reported by physician group.
When does the survey occur?
Surveys are conducted using a telephone interviewing methodology. The interviews are conducted after normal business hours between 6:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. from April to June. Survey questions are tailored for situations in which the interviewer reaches a live person, a recording or an auto attendant.
|
