Therapy carnage at start of PDPM not as severe as feared: study

The first academic study of its kind has found that the first three months of nursing homes’ overhauled Medicare payment system at the end of 2019 led to a distinct drop-off in the employed number of licensed therapists and therapy aides.

But with retrenchment of about 5% for therapists and 10% for aides, the levels did not reach the drastic wipeout that some stakeholders had warned or complained about. 

More revealing, however, should be results of an upcoming study on the level of therapy minutes delivered in the Patient Driven Payment Model era, the researchers noted.