Ongoing Vendor Responsibilities
NCQA requires that all survey vendors participate in annual survey vendor training and participate in oversight activities throughout the survey administration process. The survey vendor’s project director and at least one other representative are required to attend survey vendor training, which reviews:
- Survey sampling and data collection protocols, as described in HEDIS® Volume 3.
- NCQA Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) and updates.
- Data coding and analysis.
- Quality oversight schedule.
- Results from the previous survey administration year.
Upon successful completion of the training:
- Survey vendors are certified for one year and are prepared to collect and report CAHPS 5.1H survey data.
- NCQA posts a list of certified survey vendors on its website.
- NCQA provides survey vendors with all materials needed to field CAHPS 5.1H surveys and submit survey data.
Ongoing NCQA Oversight
NCQA provides comprehensive oversight of survey vendors during CAHPS 5.1H administration:
Before Fielding
- Survey vendor training.
- Mail and telephone material review.
- Survey vendor Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) review.
- Survey vendor conference calls.
During Survey Fielding
- Seeded mailing review.
- Customer support review and telephone interview monitoring.
- Final survey review.
- Survey vendor progress report review.
- Ongoing technical assistance.
After Survey Fielding
- Data validation rules and checks.
- Dataset review.
- Protocol analysis report.
- Primary source verification.
- Review of the final survey materials.