PCF PEC Survey CATI Reminders
folder_openOther Announcementscalendar_todayPosted November 11, 2024

Telephone follow-up for the PCF PEC Survey begins on November 18, 2024. The PCF PEC Survey Team would like to highlight the following reminders about CATI for the PCF PEC Survey: 

• Survey vendors must attempt to obtain phone numbers for the subset of patients in the sample for which a phone number was not provided. Survey vendors shall use a secondary source, such as phone matching services or software, directory assistance, and other phone directory applications. Vendors should take steps to ensure the telephone numbers provided by the service are associated with the patients in the sample file. 

• Survey vendors have the option to suspend CATI interviews from November 28-29, 2024 due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Vendors are not required to obtain pre-approval from CMS for this closure. 

• Survey vendors must provide sufficient Spanish-speaking Help Desk personnel commensurate with the size of their client practices’ Spanish-speaking populations. 

• Survey vendors must provide Spanish-speaking telephone interviewers commensurate with the size of their client practices’ Spanish-speaking populations. 

• Survey vendors must provide training for all telephone interviewing and Help Desk staff prior to beginning telephone survey data collection activities. If the survey vendor subcontracts with another firm to conduct phone interviewers, the survey vendor is responsible for attending/participating in the subcontractor’s interviewer training to make sure the subcontractor complies with the protocols, procedures, and telephone interviewer guidelines established for the PCF PEC Survey. 

• Survey vendors must ensure that telephone interviewers are properly trained. Interviewers must be thoroughly familiar with the phone survey protocol and procedures, skilled in general interviewing techniques including enlisting cooperation, refusal avoidance, and proper handling of the proxy interview protocols. Please review the PCF PEC Survey Telephone Interviewer Guidelines and confirm your staff are thoroughly trained on these topics. 

• Survey vendors must conduct an interviewer certification process—verbal, written, or both—for each interviewer and Help Desk personnel prior to permitting the interviewer or staff member to make or take calls on the PCF PEC Survey. The training and certification process should be conducted as close to phone follow-up as possible to help interviewer staff remember the information. 

• Survey vendors must ensure that telephone interviewers are certified in each language that they will be administering the survey in (i.e., bilingual interviewers must be certified in both English and Spanish). 

• Survey vendors must submit documentation of training and certification of all telephone interviewers and Help Desk staff, along with the outcomes, to the PCF PEC Survey team for review by 5:00 pm ET on Friday, December 6, 2024. If additional telephone interviewers are trained after that submission, survey vendors must submit revised documentation by no later than Friday, January 31, 2025. 

Vendors with questions should contact the PCF PECS Team via e-mail at pcfpecs@rti.org or call 1-833-997-2715.