Frequently Asked Questions
General FAQs
To undertake a survey with us, please complete and return the relevant application form. All application forms can be downloaded from the relevant survey product page. Access all survey options from the our surveys page.
On receipt of your application, our team will send a ‘notification of application receipt’ email to you. Your application will be fully processed within 2 to 3 business days. Dependant on the product offering you’ve selected, you may then receive an email to let you know when your survey pack has been sent.
On the portal landing page, please click on the ‘Get a username reminder and password reset’ button. You’ll be emailed a link to reset your password. Please note, sometimes our emails are delivered to junk or spam folders so it pays to check there if the reset details haven’t come through within a few minutes. It’s helpful to mark emails from CFEP Surveys as ‘safe’ to ensure they arrive in your inbox. If you’re still unable to log in, please reach out to us via our contact page.
If you cannot remember your username or password, please go to the password reset page. We’ll then send you an email with your username and the option to create a new password.
If you continue to have problems we recommend that you also try clearing your browser cache.
We value our returning clients and offer a 10% discount to those clients that have previously used CFEP Surveys to meet their patient feedback accreditation requirements. We’re pleased to offer competitive prices to all our clients across Australia and pride ourselves on providing a positive service experience and exceptional customer support.
If you’ve checked with your local post office and it’s not being held there, please contact us so that we can provide another pack. There will be an additional administration charge for this which will vary depending on the type and size of the survey ordered.
Simply place the individual completed and sealed questionnaires in the return self-addressed envelope we provided in the survey pack, add the required postage, and pop it in the mail. We recommend to either post via registered mail or in an Express Post satchel so parcel tracking is available.
It’s not necessary to include a cover letter or other identifying information – your questionnaires will be uniquely barcoded to your survey.
Practice Accreditation Survey (PAIS) FAQs
Yes! Your Practice Accreditation Survey Report will support you in demonstrating compliance with Criterion QI 1.2 Indicator > A of the RACGP Standards 5th edition.
You’ll find an ‘Action Plan’ included in your report which can further assist you in demonstrating compliance with Criterion QI 1.2 Indicator > B of the RACGP Standards.
The requirements of Criterion QI 1.2 Indicator > C can also be supported through the provision of a ‘Certificate of Completion’ and a Practice Improvement Plan for your practice which is also issued with your Report.
Although the RACGP does specify that you can develop your own survey, this process can take up a significant amount of time and resources. Your practice will need to develop a practice specific method of collecting patient experience feedback either through a questionnaire, patient focus groups or patient interviews. This tool will then need to be validated and approved by RACGP for use as part of the 5th edition Standards requirements.
Our PAIS tool has been approved by the RACGP’s Standards Committee to provide practice teams with validated patient questionnaires to support accreditation requirements under the RACGP Standards 5th edition. To limit the administrative burden and to make the collection of patient feedback simple, our Practice Accreditation Survey tool is the solution to your patient feedback needs. We recommend using our Practice Accreditation Survey tool to ensure that you collect reliable and meaningful data that can help inform improvements related to the safety and quality of care, patient experiences and service provided by your practice. CFEP Surveys’ clients that utilise our Practice Accreditation Survey tool are also able to compare benchmark feedback scores against those from 5,000+ practices across Australia. The practice report also includes full time equivalent (FTE) and rurality benchmarks for comparison.
We can certainly add extra questions however we’re unable to include them in the standard Practice Accreditation Survey questionnaire. These questions will be attached separately and independent analysis of feedback will be provided on these questions alone. An additional fee will be incurred for this service.
We are unable to remove any questions from our Practice Accreditation Survey questionnaire as the survey would no longer meet RACGP’s requirements for the 5th Edition Standards. If patients feel as though a question is not applicable to them, they do not need to provide a response option. This will not negatively impact the practice’s score.
Yes, doctors can earn 40 Category 1 Clinical Audit points or 30 ACRRM Extended Skills points by participating in Practice Accreditation Survey. It is a very simple process and we invite you to contact us for full details. An additional cost applies for this service.
Use our simple FTE calculator to find out your practice’s accurate full-time equivalent staff.
CFEP Surveys’ FTE calculator is used to quickly calculate the number of full-time equivalent general practitioners. This is used to identify the correct Practice Accreditation Survey pricing model for your practice. Don’t include locums or registrars in your FTE calculations.
Below is an example of how the FTE is calculated:
- Add together all full / part-time doctor hours for one week (weekly rostered hours), excluding any locums and registrars
- Divide the total by 38 (38 hours = 1 FTE)
- Round that number up to the nearest whole number.
- The final whole number is the FTE for your practice
Example:
- 40h + 36h + 18h = 94 hours
- 94h divided by 38 = 2.47
- 2.47 FTE is rounded up to the nearest whole number
- Total = 3 FTE on the application
We now offer a combination of the online and paper-based Practice Accreditation Survey to obtain patient feedback. The online Practice Accreditation Survey is even more straightforward than paper-based. Following a patient appointment (in person, telehealth or video conferenced), patients can complete the Practice Accreditation Survey online in approximately three minutes through a secure link accessible via text message or email. While paper-based surveys are available on request, our online solution has helped practices across Australia to overcome some of the COVID safety challenges experienced during the pandemic.
- Able to commence immediately, not waiting for a survey pack to arrive
- Ease on the staff – no need to collect and send back completed surveys
- Added confidentiality and security as they come straight to CFEP Surveys
- Patients are able to complete on their smart phone and reduces the need for cleaning pens etc in between
- Good for the environment!
Your Practice Accreditation Survey report will be sent to you within 2-3 weeks from receipt of the sufficient number of all survey responses.
We take great pride in the quality of our reports – each report is thoroughly quality checked in-house by the CFEP Surveys Reports Team. Our final reports are not automatically generated and are personally tailored to each of our clients.
If you need your report sooner than 2-3 weeks after receipt of all responses, please let us know. On the proviso that we have received your payment and the required number of survey responses, we may be able to get your report to you ahead of any deadlines you may have.
If you’ve received an electronic report, we can send another copy. If you’ve received, or would like a bound hard copy of the report, this can be arranged at a charge of $50.00 + GST.
We offer our Practice Accreditation Survey tool in the following languages other than English: Mandarin, Farsi, Vietnamese and Arabic. We’re happy to accommodate other languages on request, simply contact us. Please be aware that there may be a delay in the supply of a survey pack in this instance.
The Practice Accreditation Survey questionnaire is also available in a customised format to meet the needs of patients primarily based in Indigenous communities.
Our protocol is as follows:
- CFEP Surveys will provide you with extra printed questionnaires in your initial survey pack for the successful completion of your surveys.
- We encourage you to have the patients complete all the surveys sent to ensure that the minimum requirement of 30 surveys per one full time equivalent (FTE) is met.
- On return of your surveys to CFEP Surveys we will contact you if an insufficient number of surveys have been returned to meet your accreditation requirements.
- CFEP Surveys are happy to provide your practice additional surveys if required, although this may incur a charge. Alternatively, we can provide a link to the online survey at no additional cost.
- Please note: we do not accept questionnaires that have been photocopied as the poor quality impedes our processes to deliver you accurate results in a timely manner. Please contact us if you require additional questionnaires.
A questionnaire will become invalid if majority of the questions have been unanswered (e.g. if one side of the paper questionnaire is blank). In this instance we’re unable to use the data for collation of statistics and another survey would need to be completed. It’s for this reason that we provide your practice with additional surveys in your initial survey pack.
We have purposely not included a column for ‘Not Applicable’ as our 20 years’ experience has shown that patients will consider the available options more closely rather than dismissing them by checking the ‘Not Applicable’ box. In most cases, your patients will either leave the question blank or simply mark it with N/A. We would like to reassure you that blank or N/A responses are not used in the score calculations and will not negatively affect your performance ratings.
CFEP Surveys staff are the only people who will be able to see the responses made by patients.
Upon completion, online survey responses are sent directly to the CFEP Surveys secure database.
For our paper survey, an envelope is provided with each questionnaire to ensure that the patient’s responses/comments remain confidential. We strongly encourage practices to reassure their patients that their honest feedback is valued and that they will remain anonymous throughout the process.
We recognise that the areas that causes the most concern are some of the demographic questions and suggest that patients are reassured of their anonymity and the importance of gaining an understanding of their patient base to enable you to provide services that best meets that clientele base. It is important to note, that blank demographic questions do not invalidate the questionnaire.
Multi-Source Feedback (MSF) FAQs
Yes!
CPD is available with most medical colleges – please contact CFEP Surveys to find out what CPD your college offers.
You can nominate your colleagues on the CFEP Surveys portal, by logging in to your account and selecting ‘CFET Colleague List’ under the ‘Your Colleague Lists’ heading.
A guidance document is provided on the process and who to nominate. Once you have read these guidelines you can proceed in adding your colleague details.
A minimum of 12 colleagues need to be added to your list before it can be submitted to us, but we recommend that you nominate 15 if possible.
Once submitted your list will be processed by a member of our team and your colleagues will be emailed a request to provide their feedback and instructions for how to access the survey.
Yes! If you access your list and select ‘Add Colleague’ you can add new colleagues to your list at any time, up to a maximum of 25.
You can also edit the email addresses of any of the existing colleagues on your list if necessary. If you need to change a colleague’s name please contact our team directly.
You can login to your portal account and view your colleague list at any time. The list will display which colleagues have completed the survey and those that haven’t so that you can follow up with them if required.
The self-assessment survey is completed on the CFEP Surveys portal, by logging in to your account and selecting ‘Self Assessment’, which will appear under the ‘Your Surveys’ heading on the portal home page. It typically only takes a few minutes to complete