Assessment of Differences in Inpatient Rehabilitation Services for Length of Stay and Health Outcomes Between US Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries

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Abstract
In the US, approximately 42% of all hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries receive postacute care (PAC) after discharge; among those, 5.5% go to inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs).1 In 2015, US Medicare spending on PAC for traditional Medicare (TM) beneficiaries was $60.3 billion, accounting for approximately 10% of total national health care spending, of which $7.5 billion was spent in IRFs, representing 13% of the total PAC spending.2 In addition to IRFs, PAC can also be provided by skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home health agencies, and long-term care hospitals. Compared with other PAC sectors, such as SNFs and home health agencies, which experienced a more pronounced decline in annual spending growth than total Medicare spending (−2.8% and −1.8% vs 0.6%), the mean annual spending growth for IRFs was fairly stable at a higher rate (1.8%) between 2008 and 2015.1,3

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