Medicare Pays Top Dollar For ‘Ultra-High’ Nursing Home Therapy
The Wall Street Journal reports on how patients who get at least 720 minutes of rehab a week generate some of nursing facilities’ biggest payments from Medicare.
The Wall Street Journal:
How Medicare Rewards Copious Nursing-Home Therapy
During his 2013 California nursing-home stay, Jack Furumura became severely dehydrated and shed more than 5 pounds, partly because staff didn’t follow written plans for his nutrition or the facility’s policies, a state inspection report shows. Still, during many of his 21 days there, the 96-year-old man suffering from dementia received two hours or more of physical and occupational therapy combined, records show. (Weaver, Wilde Mathews and McGinty, 8/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
Nursing Homes’ ‘Ultra High’ Therapy Rates
See the share of days that nursing facilities bill to Medicare at the highest possible rate, for ultrahigh amounts of therapy. (8/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
THE SHORT ANSWER: What to Know About Medicare’s Nursing-Home Coverage
Nursing homes are performing more and more therapy on patients enrolled in the Medicare program, which pays the facilities in a way that tends to make it most lucrative to put patients in a high-duration-therapy category, The Wall Street Journal reports in a Page One article. Here’s what to know about how Medicare’s nursing-home coverage works. (Wilde Mathews, 8/16)
