How To Find the Right Medical Rehab Services

Rehabilitation therapy can be a godsend after hospitalization for a stroke, a fall, an accident, a joint replacement, a severe burn or a spinal cord injury, among other conditions. Physical, occupational and speech therapy are offered in a variety of settings, including at hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and at home. It’s crucial to identify a high-quality, safe option with professionals experienced in treating your condition.

What kinds of rehab therapy might I need?

Physical therapy helps patients improve their strength, stability and movement and reduce pain, usually through targeted exercises. Some physical therapists specialize in neurological, cardiovascular or orthopedic issues. There are also geriatric and pediatric specialists. Occupational therapy focuses on specific activities (referred to as “occupations”), often ones that require fine motor skills, like brushing teeth, cutting food with a knife and getting dressed. Speech and language therapy help people communicate. Some patients may need respiratory therapy if they have trouble breathing or need to be weaned from a ventilator.

Will insurance cover rehab?

Medicare, health insurers, workers’ compensation and Medicaid plans in some states cover rehab therapy, but plans may refuse to pay for certain settings and may limit the amount of therapy you receive. Some insurers may require preauthorization, and some may terminate coverage if you’re not improving. Private insurers often place annual limits on outpatient therapy. Traditional Medicare is generally the least restrictive, while private Medicare Advantage plans may monitor progress closely and limit where patients can obtain therapy.

Should I seek inpatient rehabilitation?

Patients who still need nursing or a doctor’s care but can tolerate three hours of therapy five days a week may qualify for admission to a specialized rehab hospital or to a unit within a general hospital. Patients usually need at least two of the main types of rehab therapy: physical, occupational or speech. Stays average around 12 days.

How do I choose?

Look for a place that is skilled in treating people with your diagnosis; many inpatient hospitals list specialties on their websites. People with complex or severe medical conditions may want a rehab hospital connected to an academic medical center at the vanguard of new treatments, even if it’s a plane ride away.

“You’ll see youngish patients with these life-changing, fairly catastrophic injuries,” like spinal cord damage, travel to another state for treatment, said Cheri Blauwet, chief medical officer of Spaulding Rehabilitation in Boston, one of 15 hospitals the federal government has praised for cutting-edge work.

But there are advantages in selecting a hospital close to family and friends who can help after you are discharged. Therapists can help train at-home caregivers.

How do I find rehab hospitals?

The discharge planner or caseworker at the acute care hospital should provide options. You can search for inpatient rehabilitation facilities by location or name through Medicare’s Care Compare website. There you can see how many patients the rehab hospital has treated with your condition — the more the better. You can search by specialty through the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association, a trade group that lists its members.

Find out what specialized technologies a hospital has, like driving simulators—a car or truck that enable a patient to practice getting in and out of a vehicle—or a kitchen table with utensils to practice making a meal.

How can I be confident a rehab hospital is reliable?

It’s not easy: Medicare doesn’t analyze staffing levels or post on its website results of safety inspections as it does for nursing homes. You can ask your state public health agency or the hospital to provide inspection reports for the last three years. Such reports can be technical, but you should get the gist. If the report says an “immediate jeopardy” was called, that means inspectors identified safety problems that put patients in danger.

The rate of patients readmitted to a general hospital for a potentially preventable reason is a key safety measure. Overall, for-profit rehabs have higher readmission rates than nonprofits do, but there are some with lower readmission rates and some with higher ones. You may not have a nearby choice: There are fewer than 400 rehab hospitals, and most general hospitals don’t have a rehab unit.

You can find a hospital’s readmission rates under Care Compare’s quality section. Rates lower than the national average are better.

Another measure of quality is how often patients are functional enough to go home after finishing rehab rather than to a nursing home, hospital, or health care institution. That measure is called “discharge to community” and is listed under Care Compare’s quality section. Rates higher than the national average are better.

Look for reviews of the hospital on Yelp and other sites. Ask if the patient will see the same therapist most days or a rotating cast of characters. Ask if the therapists have board certifications earned after intensive training to treat a patient’s particular condition.

Visit if possible, and don’t look only at the rooms in the hospital where therapy exercises take place. Injuries often occur in the 21 hours when a patient is not in therapy, but in his or her room or another part of the building. Infections, falls, bedsores, and medication errors are risks. If possible, observe whether nurses promptly respond to call lights, seem overloaded with too many patients, or are apathetically playing on their phones. Ask current patients and their family members if they are satisfied with the care.

What if I can’t handle three hours of therapy a day?

A nursing home that provides rehab might be appropriate for patients who don’t need the supervision of a doctor but aren’t ready to go home. The facilities generally provide round-the-clock nursing care. The amount of rehab varies based on the patient. There are more than 14,500 skilled nursing facilities in the United States, 12 times as many as hospitals offering rehab, so a nursing home may be the only option near you.

You can look for them through Medicare’s Care Compare website. 

What if patients are too frail even for a nursing home?

They might need a long-term care hospital. Those specialize in patients who are in comas, on ventilators, and have acute medical conditions that require the presence of a physician. Patients stay at least four weeks, and some are there for months. Care Compare helps you search. There are fewer than 350 such hospitals.

I’m strong enough to go home. How do I receive therapy?

Many rehab hospitals offer outpatient therapy. You also can go to a clinic, or a therapist can come to you. You can hire a home health agency or find a therapist who takes your insurance and makes house calls. Your doctor or hospital may give you referrals. On Care Compare, home health agencies list whether they offer physical, occupational, or speech therapy. You can search for board-certified therapists on the American Physical Therapy Association’s website.

While undergoing rehab, patients sometimes move from hospital to nursing facility to home, often at the insistence of their insurers. Alice Bell, a senior specialist at the APTA, said patients should try to limit the number of transitions, for their own safety.

“Every time a patient moves from one setting to another,” she said, “they’re in a higher risk zone.”

This story is republished with permission from KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

KFF Health News author Jordan Rau wrote this story.