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Published Date: 2025-02-19

CAHPS Cues: Improving Access to Appointments

This month, we’re focusing on how providers can improve ease of getting appointments, a key area of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey.

As we mentioned last month, the CAHPS survey measures patients’ experiences with their healthcare providers and plans.

Improve “Getting Needed Care”

Allowing your patients to make appointments and get care in a timely manner is one way you can create and sustain a superior care experience. Planning prior to the visit is a best practice in addressing all these measures. Check out some tips that you can implement in your own practice to help improve this experience measure below:

Patient Experience Survey Question: How easy was it to get an appointment with your personal doctor as soon as you needed?
Pre-Visit	Allow patients to schedule appointments online. Have an answering service who has access to the scheduling tool to schedule after hours. Transfer member to the answering service if hold time is over one minute. Have a survey after the patient schedules online to give them an opportunity to review how easy it was to make the appointment.
During the Office Visit	Offer times throughout the day where you will see walk-ins. Offer Telehealth Appointments. Offer appointments outside of normal business hours to address social determinants of health and meet patients’ needs. Our members may not have the option to take a day off work.
Post-Visit	Schedule the patients’ next visit at the end of the appointment. Give the patient an appointment reminder card or appointment reminder magnets, which double as a great advertisement! Send patients a text and email reminder about their upcoming appointment. Offer a link to reschedule.

Together we can ensure that your patients’ expectations are surpassed, and that they receive care that goes above and beyond. This will not only help your patients’ health outcomes, but will also help build patient loyalty for your practice, improve employee satisfaction, reduce costly staff turnover, and lower malpractice risks.