Federal well being officers don’t inform shoppers about extreme security violations in hospitals specializing in bodily rehabilitation. Nor does Medicare impose fines because it does for nursing houses, or present easy-to-understand five-star rankings because it does for normal hospitals, in response to an investigation by KFF Well being Information and The New York Occasions.
Medical rehab hospitals have turn into a extremely profitable area of interest inside the well being care trade, collectively producing income of 10%, greater than normal hospitals, which earn about 6%, and excess of expert nursing houses, which make lower than 0.5%, in response to the latest knowledge from the Medicare Fee Advisory Fee, an unbiased congressional company often called MedPAC.
However MedPAC and unbiased researchers have discovered that for-profit rehabs are likely to have greater charges of sufferers being readmitted to normal hospitals than nonprofits do.
In 2023, stand-alone for-profit rehabilitation hospitals overtook nonprofits because the locations the place most annual affected person admissions happen, a KFF Well being Information and New York Occasions evaluation discovered. These services are required to offer three hours of bodily, occupational, or speech remedy a day, 5 days every week.
Congress has not licensed Medicare to nice rehab hospitals for violations uncovered throughout inspections, even ones that resulted in demise, because it has executed with practically 8,000 nursing houses over the last three years, imposing common fines of about $28,000.
The one possibility is to thoroughly minimize off a rehab hospital’s reimbursement for all providers by Medicare and Medicaid, which cowl most sufferers. That step would probably put it out of enterprise and is sort of by no means used. Even probably the most severe violations successfully carry no punishments as long as the hospital places steps in place to avert future issues.
The federal authorities’s general high quality oversight efforts are restricted. Medicare docks cost to rehab services for sufferers readmitted to a normal hospital throughout shorter-than-average rehab stays, however not like at normal hospitals, there are not any monetary penalties when lately discharged rehab sufferers are hospitalized for crucial well being points.
The Biden administration introduced final 12 months it meant to develop a score scale of 1 to five stars for rehab services on its Care Examine web site. The trade’s commerce affiliation, the American Medical Rehabilitation Suppliers Affiliation, requested a delay within the creation of star rankings till the present high quality measures have been refined. The Trump administration has not decided whether or not it can proceed the hassle to charge rehab services.
Additionally learn our client information to discovering the appropriate place to get bodily, occupational or speech remedy.
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