Testing CAHPS Health Plan Performance Reports in the Florida Medicaid Program

The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), initiated the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPSr) project in 1995 to develop and test methods to provide consumers with comparative information on performance of health plans as reported by current health plan enrollees. In collaboration with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), RAND conducted a CAHPS demonstration with the Florida Medicaid program to test applications of plan performance reports in the Medicaid sector. Both paper and computer-based report formats were designed and tested in field applications in Volusia County, Florida. Evidence was found that failures in any of four dimension of a consumer information strategy can impede consumer use of the information.