WALL STREET JOURNAL: …His family was surprised to learn, while reviewing records during a Journal interview, how much therapy he got despite his poor condition. “I can’t even imagine my dad participating in this kind of therapy for these lengths of time,” says his daughter, Kathleen Kiang.
Tales like Mr. Furumura’s show how, at a time when U.S. health-care costs are under scrutiny, Medicare’s own rules can provide financial incentives for institutions to give high levels of rehabilitative therapy…
“Playing to the max has a long tradition in health care,” [Vincent Mor, a Brown University health-services professor and chairman of the independent quality committee at HCR ManorCare Inc., ] says. At nursing homes, “that tradition is based on the number of minutes of therapy given, so people give therapy up to the max.” He says factors such as a trend of sicker patients getting admitted to nursing homes may also contribute to rising therapy… (more)
