Ripping off the dying: Nursing homes give terminal residents expensive, unnecessary therapy

A 2018 study from the University of Rochester found that many New York nursing homes gave residents expensive rehabilitation treatment during the last days of their lives. The proportion of nursing home residents who reportedly received the highest intensity rehab increased by 65 percent from October 2012 to April 2016. Nursing homes receive an average of $560 a day per patient from Medicare for “ultrahigh intensity” rehabilitation, making this type of rehab a tempting way for some nursing homes to increase revenue from dying patients. Not surprisingly, for-profit nursing homes were more than two times as likely to use high to ultrahigh intensity therapy than were non-profit homes.

SOURCES: Riley Griffin, Bloomberg; Christopher Weaver, Anna Wilde Mathews and Tom McGinty, The Wall Street Journal

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