Skilled nursing patients received about 13% fewer therapy minutes after the onset of the Patient-Driven Payment Model in October 2019 but that did not hurt outcomes or rehospitalization rates. Researchers reported in JAMA Health Forum Jan. 7 that average length of stay also was not significantly affected.
That means the Medicare payment system was working as intended during the six months before and just after the pandemic was declared in 2020, investigators told McKnight’s.
“We didn’t see any changes in ADL scores at discharge,” said Momotazur Rahman, P.h.D., of Brown University’s School of Public Health. “That would imply that there was too much therapy provided before.”
The researchers reviewed records for about 200,000 patients, one-fourth of them admitted post-PDPM.
From the January/February 2022 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
