How to Read CAHPS Patient Experience Scores

It's a standardized patient survey administered by CMS

OAS CAHPS stands for Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems. It's a survey sent to patients after they've had a procedure at a Medicare-certified ASC. CMS collects the results and publishes them publicly so patients can compare facilities.

It measures patient experience, not clinical outcomes

CAHPS scores reflect how patients rated their experience — communication, cleanliness, staff responsiveness, how well pain was managed — not whether the surgery went well medically. Both matter, but they measure different things.

Not every ASC has enough survey data

Smaller or lower-volume facilities may not have a sufficient number of surveys to generate reliable scores. CMS suppresses scores for facilities with too few responses. A missing score isn't automatically a red flag — it may just mean the facility doesn't do enough volume for the data to be statistically meaningful.

How well staff explained what to expect

Patients are asked whether staff clearly explained the procedure, what to expect during recovery, and what symptoms or problems to watch for. Facilities that score poorly here tend to have more patient anxiety and worse follow-through on discharge instructions.

Whether patients felt treated with courtesy and respect

This reflects the interpersonal quality of care — were staff respectful, did they listen, did they treat the patient as a person rather than a case number. Consistently low scores here are a meaningful signal about culture.

Whether the facility was clean

Patients are asked to rate the cleanliness of the facility. This is both a direct quality measure and a proxy for how well-run the facility is in general. A dirty-looking ASC is not just unpleasant — it's a potential infection risk.

Whether pain was well-managed

Patients rate how well staff addressed their pain before, during, and after the procedure. Poor scores here can reflect inadequate pre-operative counseling, poor anesthesia management, or rushed discharge before pain was controlled.

Overall rating of the facility

A single 0–10 rating of the overall experience. CMS reports the percentage of patients who gave a rating of 9 or 10 (top box). This is the most commonly cited summary measure.

"Top box" scores are the standard metric

CMS reports the percentage of patients who gave the most favorable response to each question — usually 'Always' or a rating of 9 or 10. A top-box score of 85% on cleanliness means 85% of patients said the facility was always clean.

What counts as a good score

For most CAHPS measures, national averages for high-performing ASCs tend to cluster in the 75–90% range for top-box responses. A score of 90%+ across multiple measures is genuinely strong. Scores below 60% on any measure should prompt questions.

Compare to similar facilities, not just a national average

Scores can vary by region, patient population, and specialty. A pain management ASC may have different score profiles than a cataract center. Compare facilities that do similar procedures in similar markets.

One low score doesn't disqualify a facility

Look for patterns across multiple measures. A facility that scores consistently low across communication, cleanliness, and overall rating is a concern. A single low score on one measure could be statistical noise, especially with smaller sample sizes.

CAHPS is one signal, not the whole picture

Combine CAHPS scores with accreditation status, Google reviews, surgeon experience, and your own conversation with the facility. No single data point tells the full story.

On each facility page in this directory

We display the overall CAHPS rating score for every facility that has sufficient survey data from CMS. You can compare scores across facilities in any city or state.

On Medicare Care Compare

The official CMS tool at medicare.gov/care-compare allows you to search for ASCs and view detailed CAHPS scores broken down by individual survey questions.