Non-Substantive Change Request

Veterans Health Administration White Paper

OMB No. 2900-0764 (Dental Patient Satisfaction Survey)

March 2015

Background :

The mission of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is to provide high quality medical and dental care to eligible veterans. Executive Order 12862, dated September 11, 1993, calls for the establishment and implementation of customer service standards, and for agencies to “survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with current services”. At present, VA does not specifically evaluate patient satisfaction for over 400,000 veterans receiving dental services each year. The Dental Patient satisfaction survey is comprised primarily of questions taken from two validated and extensively tested surveys. The first survey is the VA Nation-wide Customer Satisfaction Survey: Survey of Health Experience of Patients (SHEP); this has OMB approval under clearance number 2900-0712. The second survey, Dental Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Provider and Systems (DCAHPS), was developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The psychometric properties of this survey are well documented and the survey has been used extensively in measuring patient satisfaction for TRICARE dental services.

Request:

The feedback collected over the last several years has been critical in documenting and improving veteran dental care. Inasmuch, questions on the previously approved survey, for example questions regarding race, were not particularly valued by respondents. Additionally, questions regarding the level of dental service they had recently received were also deleted from the survey, as many respondents felt they were not qualified to assess the nature or value of the dental care they had recently received.  Lastly, to satisfy written requests regarding the previously issued survey, we added false teeth/denture work as a category of dental work which required the respondents visit, as well as expanding the age categories to include older veterans who will respond to this survey. The survey instruments have also been updated to include expiration date placeholders in accordance with applicable OMB policies.