Grant Description:
Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement program holds hospitals accountable for total Medicare spending for patients admitted for major joint replacement surgery. By paying hospitals a bundled price, hospitals are incentivized to decrease spending incurred from hospitalization through 90 days after discharge. One potentially promising, yet understudied, intervention that hospitals could employ is higher intensity acute occupational therapy. Occupational therapy focuses on addressing patients’ overall health and wellbeing throughout the care continuum and could lead to more appropriate post-discharge service use and outcomes. This study will assess the relationship between acute occupational therapy spending and patient outcomes over the short and long-run as well as its relationship with hospital financial performance.