Home Health & Hospice Week

With the newly issued HH PPS final rule eliminating therapy as a case mix factor, therapists may need to prove their services’ worth more than they currently do. A new study should give them one tool to do so.

Low home health physical therapy utilization of fewer than five visits was significantly associated with worse recovery in Activities of Daily Living after total knee arthroplasty (knee replacement) for Medicare beneficiaries, note University of Colorado researchers in a new study published in the Oct. 17 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

Compared with low utilization, patients who received six to nine therapy visits had a 25 percent greater improvement in ADLs over the episode, patients who received 10 to 13 visits had a 40 percent greater improvement, and patients who received 14 or more had a 50 percent greater improvement, found the study that looked at 2012 claims data for nearly 6,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

“This study is important because some people have recommended saving money by curtailing the use of physical therapists for in-home care for patients who receive total knee arthroplasty,” lead author Jason Falvey with the CU School of Medicine’s Physical Therapy Program says in a release. “But those recommendations are based on a lack of research. Our study shows that patients recover better when they receive appropriate care.”

Readmission risk: “Patients who don’t get the home health care visits they need can end up needing future hospitalization or institutionalization,” Falvey warns. “The risks of not providing the appropriate level home health care may result in higher overall healthcare costs in the long term.”

See the abstract at https://journals.lww.com/jbjsjournal.