Secret shopper survey
Definition
A secret shopper survey tests a provider directory by calling listed providers as if booking care, then recording whether the listing was right: the location, phone number, network status and whether new patients are accepted.
By the Candor Health team
Last reviewed
Also called secret shopper and mystery shopper
Who uses secret shopper surveys?
Regulators, researchers and plans themselves. CMS used phone-based reviews in its Online Provider Directory Reviews of Medicare Advantage plans.
What do they show?
An accuracy rate for the sample called, and examples of the errors members run into. They are good at showing that a problem exists.
What are their limits?
They are slow and cover a small sample, so they can't tell you which of the rest of your listings are wrong. Field-level verification across the whole directory finds the specific records to fix.