CMS - Problems with Prompting

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Breaking news / Warning. We were just informed Yesterday (3/1/2012) that one of our Texas hospitals with boards was told by by their CMS person that the following text on their board had to be removed from their boards since it would unfairly prompt patients to give overly favorable responses. They say they will have to remove existing boards with the following text or be out of compliance. We are asking all our board customers to see if this affects them and may require a change of text. Please note that this is 2nd hand information from reputable people but it is an area of expertise that we have no qualifications. We just want to let you know that if you copy some text from an existing board it is not cerified useable or compliant and that you might want to check out this "Prompting Problem by CMS".

We have not heard from hospital yet what they are going to remake boards with to be compliant.

PS. The hospital itself was perfectly happy with wording below (which they have had up for almost a year) till CMS told them it was not acceptable. See changes that should solve the problem per another hospitals input

Press Ganey Associates, Inc. partners with nearly 2000 hospitals to collect HCAHPS data. They have shared the Communication Guidelines which they prepared for their client hospitals based on CMS regulations. If you have questions about the CMS guidelines, please contact your Press Ganey account team or clientsupport@pressganey.com.

Click This link to Press Ganey's helpful Guidelines

The Studer Group http://www.studergroup.com/ who consults for hospitals seems to be aware of this and may have solutions for you to comply with CMS guidelines. We suggest you contact your Studer Representative.

see => HCAHPS Communicating with patients

** This is text that got them in trouble **
words underlined were the problem
Our goal is for you to ALWAYS be VERY SATISFIED.
* Treat you with courtesy and respect
* Control your pain
* Listen to you carefully
* Check on you frequently (Rounding)
* Provide a clean and quiet environment
* Answer your call light promptly
* Explain medications and procedures
* Keep you informed

Our Goal is to Always Keep You Comfortable

** This is text that they will use on replacements **
Our goal is for you to be SATISFIED.
* Treat you with courtesy and respect
* Control your pain
* Listen to you carefully
* Check on you frequently (Rounding)
* Provide a clean and quiet environment
* Answer your call light promptly
* Explain medications and procedures
* Keep you informed

Our Goal is to Keep You Comfortable

3/30/12 A4328 -- a4569 A4689