Access to Inpatient Rehabilitation Therapy Act

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, coordinated medical rehabilitation provided in an inpatient rehabilitation setting is crucial to Medicare beneficiaries with injuries, disease, disabilities, or chronic conditions.

Unfortunately, beginning in 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began placing limitations on what types of therapy a beneficiary could receive, despite the professional judgment of a treating physician. This ties a physician's hands, and it limits recreational therapy from being prescribed, despite it being medically necessary in many cases.

These services are often prescribed to assist an individual in transitioning from the rehabilitation hospital to the home, helping patients recover their functions and decreasing the chances of costly readmissions. CMS, the Medicare agency, should not have put in place barriers for physicians and their patients when determining the best course of action for recovery.

This is why I introduced the bipartisan Access to Inpatient Rehabilitation Therapy Act of 2014 with my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

I encourage my colleagues to lend their support to this commonsense bipartisan measure, H.R. 4755. It has zero cost, yet will empower doctors and patients to gain access to the most appropriate mix of therapeutic rehabilitation services.

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