Program

Survey Administration

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) administers the HOS in partnership with CMS. Memos informing survey vendors and Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) of survey administration requirements will be posted here from time to time. The following memos publish the MAO and survey vendor requirements for the 2019 administration year:

• FIDE SNPs 2019 Survey Administration Memo outlines the participation process for MA organizations who wish to sponsor FIDE SNPs in the upcoming HOS or HOS-M for the purpose of frailty payment considerations. It clarifies the plan reporting requirements, optional reporting protocol, and sampling process during the upcoming survey administration.
• HOS 2019 Survey Administration Plan Memo outlines the MAO survey vendor selection process, MAO reporting requirements, optional reporting, and contains a list of MAOs that are required to participate in HOS during the upcoming survey administration.
• HOS 2019 Exclusion Memo gives specific requirements for MAO exclusion in HOS reporting and a list of MAOs that are excluded during the upcoming survey administration.
• HOS-M 2019 Survey Administration Memo outlines the HOS-M plan reporting requirements, optional reporting, sampling process and list of plans that are required to administer HOS-M during the upcoming survey administration.
• MHOS 2019 Survey Vendor Training Slides outline the goals of the HOS program, program updates, survey vendor requirements, data coding and submission, quality oversight requirements, data management, and any changes in survey administration and project reporting. The vendor training is conducted annually in February.

Quality Assurance Guidelines (QAGs) and HEDIS® Volume 6 Manuals for Download
NCQA annually publishes the HOS Quality Assurance Guidelines and Technical Specifications (QAG) manual and the HEDIS®, Volume 6: Specifications for the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey manual. The QAG details the requirements, protocols, and procedures for the HOS administration that help to standardize the data collection process across the CMS-approved HOS survey vendors. The HEDIS®, Volume 6: Specifications for the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey manual contains background information about the survey, the measure description, the HEDIS® protocol, the English version of the HOS and HOS-M questionnaires, and the text for the survey letters and postcards. Additional copies of HEDIS® Volume 6 for previous years may be obtained by calling NCQA Customer Support at (888) 275-7585 or via NCQA's Publications Center (http://store.ncqa.org).

The HOS QAGs and the HEDIS® Volume 6 manuals are available for download in PDF format below:

An Addendum to the 2019 HOS Quality Assurance Guidelines and Technical Specifications V2.3 was released in February 2019.

An Addendum to the 2018 HOS Quality Assurance Guidelines and Technical Specifications V2.2 was released in June 2018.

This page was last modified on 02/28/2019