Errors at rehab hospitals go ‘unpenalized and undisclosed,’ NY Times says

Rehab hospitals that help people recover from major surgeries and injuries have become a highly lucrative slice of the health care business. But federal data and inspection reports show that some run by the dominant company, Encompass Health (EHC), and other for-profit corporations have had rare but serious incidents of patient harm and perform below average on two key safety measures tracked by Medicare, The New York Times’ Jordan Rau and Irena Hwang report. Yet even when inspections reveal grave cases of injury, federal health officials do not inform consumers or impose fines the way they do for nursing homes. Federal data on the performance of about 1,100 of the rehab facilities show Encompass tends to be better at helping most patients return home and remain there, the authors note. But data from Medicare also reveals Encompass owns many of the rehabs with worse rates of potentially preventable, unplanned readmissions to general hospitals. Shares of Encompass are down almost 10% at $107.81 in afternoon trading.