Table 1.

Correlations of CAHPS^® Adult Survey Items with Reporting Composite and Global Ratings

		Global Ratings of
Adult Survey Composites and Items	CAHPS® Reporting Composite†	Personal Doctor‡	Specialist‡	All Health Care‡	Health Plan‡
Getting Care Quickly	1.0	.40	.28	.57	.48
AC15 how often got help when calling doctor	.42	.34	.22	.46	.38
AC17 how often got appointment for regular care	.40	.27	.19	.38	.32
AC19 how often got care for illness or injury	.36	.27	.20	.40	.36
AC24 how often waited <15 minutes	.27	.19	.13	.28	.22
Doctors Who Communicate Well	1.0	.46	.30	.66	.44
AC27 how often doctors listened carefully	.73	.41	.26	.58	.38
AC28 how often doctors explained things	.68	.35	.24	.51	.33
AC29 how often doctors showed respect	.75	.40	.26	.57	.38
AC30 how often doctors spent enough time	.69	.39	.26	.56	.38
Courteous/Helpful Office Staff	1.0	.34	.23	.52	.38
AC25 how often office staff courteous/respectful	.61	.28	.19	.43	.31
AC26 how often office staff was helpful	.61	.33	.23	.50	.37
Getting Needed Care	1.0	.35	.26	.54	.57
AC06 no problem getting personal doctor or nurse	.32	.29	.19	.39	.41
AC10 no problem getting referral to specialists	.40	.24	.18	.36	.38
AC22 no problem getting care thought necessary	.48	.27	.20	.44	.38
AC23 no problem with delays for plan approval	.43	.17	.14	.31	.41
Health Plan Customer Service	1.0	.28	.24	.43	.62
AC33 no problem in finding or understanding written plan information	.30	.20	.16	.30	.40
AC35 no problem getting help from customer service	.35	.20	.18	.32	.48
AC37 no problem with paperwork for plan	.32	.20	.17	.31	.44

Source: Responses (166,074) to CAHPS^® surveys among 306 plans in the 1999 National CAHPS^® Benchmarking Database. All question numbers refer to the CAHPS^® 2.0 Adult Survey.

^†Item to composite correlations were corrected for item overlap with the composite score.

^‡Each rating ranged from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worse possible and 10 is the best possible.

All correlation coefficients were significantly different from zero, p<.0001.