Public reports on patient experience with physician practices across a community can be invaluable for demonstrating how well these practices are providing patient-centered care, highlighting strong performers, and revealing where these practices have opportunities to improve the patient experience. For consumers, these reports offer standardized information on quality that is easy to understand and relevant regardless of individual health care needs or health status.

Over the past several years, the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician & Group Surveys (CG-CAHPS) have become the national standard for assessing patients’ experiences with ambulatory care. As the Aligning Forces for Quality communities and other multi-stakeholder organizations have moved forward with implementing this survey, they have found that the process of developing a public report on the survey results involves a number of key decisions. This decision guide details the considerations that go into each of these key decisions so that survey sponsors and their partners in the community can hone in on the issues they need to address and weigh their options given their shared goals and constraints.