A new hospital-sponsored report concludes that the 75% rule has prevented access of care to 40,000 people in the rule’s first year of enactment.

The Moran report, which was released earlier this week, comes about a week after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid released a report refuting the Moran methodology and supporting the 75% rule. Moran is performing an ongoing analysis to show the harmful effects of the rule on patient care over time. The latest one offers evidence through the third quarter of 2005.

Some statistics from the new Moran report: Itis likely that a total of 64,000 fewer patients will be treated in IRFs during year 2 of the 75% rule. There were nearly 16,000 fewer discharges in the third quarter of 2005 than 2004.

But the CMS memo said the Moran study used 2002 as the base year for comparison to 2003 through 2005. It is difficult to confirm trends over a short period of time, according to CMS. Also, provider behavior patterns changed significantly between 2001 and 2002 in response to implementation of the IRF PPS starting in 2002, CMS said.