Federal well being officers don’t inform customers about extreme security violations in hospitals specializing in bodily rehabilitation. Nor does Medicare impose fines because it does for nursing properties, or present easy-to-understand five-star scores because it does for common hospitals, in keeping with an investigation by KFF Health News and The New York Times.
Medical rehab hospitals have turn into a extremely profitable area of interest inside the well being care business, collectively producing earnings of 10%, greater than common hospitals, which earn about 6%, and excess of expert nursing properties, which make lower than 0.5%, in keeping with the newest knowledge from the Medicare Cost Advisory Fee, an unbiased congressional company often known as MedPAC.
However MedPAC and unbiased researchers have found that for-profit rehabs tend to have increased charges of sufferers being readmitted to common 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 per week.
Congress has not licensed Medicare to wonderful rehab hospitals for violations uncovered throughout inspections, even ones that resulted in demise, because it has carried out with practically 8,000 nursing homes over the past three years, imposing common fines of about $28,000.
The one possibility is to completely minimize off a rehab hospital’s reimbursement for all companies by Medicare and Medicaid, which cowl most sufferers. That step would most certainly put it out of enterprise and is nearly by no means used. Even essentially the most critical 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 common hospital throughout shorter-than-average rehab stays, however in contrast to at common hospitals, there aren’t any monetary penalties when just lately discharged rehab sufferers are hospitalized for vital well being points.
The Biden administration introduced final yr it supposed to develop a rating scale of 1 to 5 stars for rehab services on its Care Examine web site. The business’s commerce affiliation, the American Medical Rehabilitation Suppliers Affiliation, requested a delay within the creation of star scores till the present high quality measures have been refined. The Trump administration has not decided whether or not it is going to proceed the hassle to charge rehab services.
Additionally learn our consumer guide to finding the right place to get bodily, occupational or speech remedy.
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