SNFs focused on individual therapy, new government report reveals

Regulators outline new process for manual medical review of therapy claims

Skilled nursing facilities are almost exclusively putting residents in individual therapy, a new report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid says.

While experts said it was too early to fully assess the impact of the 11% average payment reduction to skilled nursing facilities that went into effect Oct. 1, a new report from CMS indicates that essentially no group therapy has been provided in skilled nursing facilities in the current fiscal year. Eight percent of therapy in fiscal year 2011 was done in groups

Providers have “significantly changed” the mode of therapy since 2006-2007, when a fourth of patients were in concurrent therapy, CMS says. As of this year, one percent of therapy is being done as concurrent.

However, CMS has not found a change in patient case mix over the past two years. It also said that the breakdown of therapy minutes is not significantly different based on whether the facility is a for-profit, non-profit or government-owned.

Click here to read the report.