Is Profit Status of Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities Independently Associated With 30-Day Unplanned Hospital Readmission for Medicare Beneficiaries?
Chih-Ying Li, Amol Karmarkar, Yu-Li Lin and 3 others
PMID 28958606WHAT IT FOUND
For-profit inpatient rehab facilities had a 0.1% point higher 30-day unplanned readmission measure than non-profit facilities.
This is a facility-level finding, not a patient-level effect.
Key findings
01For-profit IRFs had higher facility-level readmission measures than non-profit IRFs (13.26 versus 13.15).
02After adjustment, for-profit IRFs had a 0.1% point higher readmission measure than non-profit IRFs.
03IRFs in the Northeast and West had 0.1% point and 0.2% point lower readmission measures than IRFs in the South.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study is observational, so it cannot prove that profit status causes higher readmission. The adjusted difference was 0.1% point in the readmission measure. It used one year of Medicare claims and only ten facility characteristics. CARF accreditation information was missing for most facilities (66%). Government-owned facilities were grouped with non-profit facilities.
Declared interests
All authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The article was supported by NIH extramural and U.S. government non-PHS sources.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 0.1% point difference as evidence that for-profit ownership causes higher readmissions. The study is observational and facility-level, and it did not test whether changing profit status would alter readmission.