This measure comes from the annual Child Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS) survey, which is a questionnaire developed jointly by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

The survey draws as potential respondents the child members of Vermont Medicaid who were continuously enrolled in the plan for at least 6 months, with no more than one enrollment gap of 45 days or less. From this sample frame, a random sample of 1,650 cases is drawn.

The red dotted line in the graph above represents the national average of "top box" scores for all State Medicaid plans that submitted their results to the CAHPS database. Approximately 2/3 of states submit their annual CAHPS survey results to the national database.  It is entered onto the graph as a comparison to Vermont’s top box scores (e.g. usually or always responses).

The data in the graph above represents the % of surveyed child Vermont Medicaid members who responded "usually" or "always" when asked how well their personal doctor explains things, listens to them, shows respect for what they have to say and spends enough time with them. Vermont Medicaid monitors this as an important indicator of satisfaction with their health plan and health care-related experiences. Vermont Medicaid has been conducting this survey, following nationally certified protocol, annually since 2014. During that time period, our performance on this measure has remained steadily high and slightly above the national Medicaid health plan average.