Stroke patients on Medicare receive vastly different amounts of physical and occupational therapy during hospital stays, research finds.

The new study of Medicare claims data from 2010 for approximately 104,000 stroke patients shows that 15 percent of patients received no physical therapy (PT) or occupational therapy (OT), while on average stroke patients received two hours of therapy during their hospital stay. Some patients received almost four hours of therapy, but they were usually patients with the longest hospital stays.

“For stroke patients, rehabilitation services are one of the most important components in providing treatment after they are stabilized in the acute setting,” says Amit Kumar, an adjunct assistant professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health and an assistant professor of physical therapy at Northern Arizona University.

“This is the only treatment that helps patients regain activities for daily living, such as walking or using the restroom independently. So it’s really important to start physical therapy and occupational therapy as early as possible.”

Risk of readmission

The paper, which appears in the Physical Therapy Journal, builds on earlier work from the same group in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which showed that stroke patients who receive more PT—which helps patients restore movement to parts of the body and regain functions such as walking, balancing, or moving their arms—have lower risks of hospital readmission within a month after discharge.

In fact, Medicare patients diagnosed with an ischemic stroke—the most common type, which occurs when a brain artery becomes blocked, reducing blood flow—who received 75 minutes or more of PT while in the hospital had a 14 percent less chance of readmission than those who received none. Even 30 minutes lowered the risk of readmission 10 percent.

In contrast, the amount of OT, which helps patients relearn everyday tasks like getting dressed or using the restroom, had little impact on readmission risks, the study shows.

Two PT benefits

PT reduces the risk of hospital readmission two ways, Kumar says. One, it helps patients restore movement and regain the ability to accomplish tasks.

Second, it allows physical and occupational therapists to play a role in planning for and preparing patients for the next stage of post-acute care—whether that is an inpatient rehabilitation facility, a skilled nursing facility, or the patient’s home, with home health care assistance.

Complex needs and rehab care

Researchers found that 61.5 percent of stroke patients received both PT and OT services, 22 percent received only PT, 1.7 percent received only OT and 15 percent received neither PT nor OT. For patients who received physical or occupational therapy, on average they received 14 more minutes of therapy for each additional day spent in the hospital.

Patients enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid—indicative of more complex clinical needs and lower socioeconomic status—were 16 percent less likely to receive either rehabilitation service.

Patients who had a feeding tube inserted—indicative of a severe stroke—were 53 percent less likely to receive rehabilitation services. The findings indicate a failure to provide rehabilitation care to patients with more complex needs and with more severe conditions, the researchers say.

Patients treated in a hospital with more than 370 stroke patients a year were more likely to receive rehabilitation services but received six fewer minutes of therapy on average than those at hospitals.

On the other hand, patients treated in a hospital with an inpatient rehabilitation unit were more likely to receive rehabilitation services and received 8 more minutes of therapy, on average.

This indicates that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ financial incentives, such as bundled payment programs, appear to improve the coordination of acute and post-acute care and improve patient outcomes, Kumar says. In the earlier study, his team found that patients who received treatment in a hospital with an inpatient rehabilitation unit were 8 percent less likely to return to the hospital.

The next questions

Now Kumar is looking at 2017 Medicare claims data for a variety of potentially disabling conditions including stroke, heart failure, joint replacement, and hip fracture to see if Medicare policy changes since 2010 have improved the amount of rehabilitation services patients receive. He will also examine when rehabilitation services begin to see if that has an impact on patient outcomes.

Currently there are no clear guidelines for the timing and amount of rehabilitation services offered during hospital stays, Kumar says. Current Medicare diagnostic-based reimbursement model for hospitals doesn’t include metrics for patient functional status or rehabilitation services, which may disincentivize providers from recommending rehabilitation services, he adds.

Kumar says a randomized controlled trial on the amount and timing of hospital rehabilitation services could inform clear rehabilitation guidelines from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, a revised Medicare payment model, and ultimately better patient outcomes.

Additional coauthors are from Brown, the University of Texas Medical Branch, and the University of Pittsburgh. The National Institutes of Health and the Foundation for Physical Therapy supported the research.

Source: Brown University

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