Read About the Dental Plan Survey

The CAHPS Dental Plan Survey asks adult enrollees in dental plans about their experiences with the plan, the dentists, and their staff. This survey was originally developed for the TRICARE dental plan, but has been adapted for other uses.

It is available for use by States, purchasers, and other organizations interested in assessing, improving, and reporting on the quality and value offered by dental plans.

• To download the Dental Plan Survey and analysis programs, go to: Get the Dental Plan Survey and Instructions.
• Instructions for administering this survey are not available. However, users of this survey can adapt instructions that were developed for the Health Plan Survey: Get the Health Plan Survey and Instructions.
• For assistance in adapting the instructions from the Health Plan Survey, please contact the CAHPS Help Line at cahps1@westat.com or 1-800-492-9261.

Quality Measures from the Dental Plan Survey

The Dental Plan Survey produces the following measures of patient experience:

• Care from Dentists and Staff
• Access to Dental Care
• Dental Plan Information and Services
• Overall Rating of the Dentist
• Overall Rating of Dental Care
• Overall Rating of Ease of Finding a Dentist
• Overall Rating of the Dental Plan

Review measures from the Dental Plan Survey.

Brief History

In October 2004, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and TRICARE began work on a survey to measure patients' experiences with their dental plan and its services. TRICARE is the Department of Defense's health plan for military personnel and their dependents. This survey was submitted to the CAHPS Consortium, which adopted it as a CAHPS product in December 2006.

Learn about the development of the Dental Plan Survey.