Comment on CMS-2026-1684-0001
Eman OmarSupportIndividual
Summary: The commenter, a registered nurse and doctoral student, supports the use of patient feedback surveys like CAHPS to improve healthcare quality and reduce patient anxiety. However, they urge CMS to balance these subjective measures with objective quality data and to ensure fair assessments for healthcare professionals, particularly when treating medically fragile patients.
As an RN and doctoral student in nurse anesthesia, I appreciate the importance of patients' experiences and feedback in improving healthcare quality. In anesthesia, we often meet patients who are anxious, vulnerable, and are surrounded by multiple providers and confusing surgical stages and expectations. Therefore, effective and supportive communication before and after procedures can contribute to patients' overall experience, especially to reduce anxiety and provide support. Patient feedback should provide valuable information that may not just come from their clinical outcomes alone.
At the same time, I would encourage CMS to ensure that these feedback measures are also used alongside objective quality measures. They should also account for the complexities of caring for the especially medically fragile and more vulnerable patients. As healthcare is trending towards more value-based reimbursement, surveys like the CAHPS should still support quality improvements while also providing a fair assessment of the healthcare providers, such as CRNAs, anesthesiologists, surgeons, and other healthcare professionals whose compensation and performance may be influenced by these surveys and measures.