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RTs improve Medicare patient outcomes in skilled nursing
facilities
Posted
9-13-99 Washington. Medicare beneficiaries treated by respiratory therapists during initial visits to skilled nursing facilities are significantly less likely to die and more likely to be released earlier than patients not treated by RTs, a new study says. Conducted by a private Washington, D.C., firm using data from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the study found that Medicare patients treated by RTs stayed 3.6 fewer days at skilled nursing facilities and experienced a death rate 42 percent lower than patients treated by non-RTs. The study concludes that the shorter length of stay translates into annual Medicare savings of nearly $100 million. Officials at the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC), which commissioned the study, said the data should prompt HCFA to reexamine its prospective payment system, which limits payment to skilled nursing facilities as a result of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. "It's not just respiratory therapy that is underrepresented, but all kinds of complex healthcare needs," said Patrick Dunne, RRT, past president of the AARC. "The best-case scenario is that HCFA will look at this data, revisit the issue, and look at the formula that established what the patients' prospective needs are." Officials at HCFA, however, said the prospective payment system is working well and point to a recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General, which said that HCFA's "new nursing home payment system has not diminished Medicare beneficiaries' access to needed skilled nursing care." Dunne said 23 percent of the 1.6 million patients who entered skilled nursing facilities in 1996 required respiratory or lung treatment, but many are being turned away because Medicare won't cover the cost of the more complex patient needs.
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