This measure comes from the annual Adult 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 adult 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 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.

DVHA started including a rating of "7" in our results in 2017 in order to compare to the national CAHPS Database results. Prior to that time, our rates for this measure represent those who rated the overall health plan with a "8, 9 or 10".

This measure asks survey respondents to think about their health care in the last 6 months. When thinking about that overall health care, they are asked to rate it on a scale of 0-10 where 0 is the worst health care possible and 10 is the best health care possible. The rates shown above represent those who answered with a "7, 8, 9, or 10". The survey questions leading up to this overall rating question ask about making appointments for routine check-ups as well as more urgent health care needs (non-emergency). There are also a few questions about overall health such as illness prevention and prescription medications.

Vermont Medicaid tends to perform slightly above the national average for all Medicaid plans on this measure. With the many healthcare reform efforts underway in Vermont, like patient-centered medical homes and value based payment models, we hope to see our performance on this measure improve. 

Last updated: 03/2022