Adverse Events in Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries

This report is part of a series on adverse events in health care settings, defined as harm resulting from medical care. Previous OIG work identified harm rates of about 30 percent in both acute-care hospitals and skilled nursing facilities (SNF), with an attendant toll on patient health and taxpayers' costs, the latter amounting to billions of dollars annually. This report extends our work by evaluating care provided in rehabilitation (rehab) hospitals. Rehab hospitals are post-acute providers that specialize in intensive rehabilitative care for patients recovering from illness, injury, or surgery. While in recent years stakeholders have paid considerable attention to patient safety in acute-care hospitals and increasingly in SNFs, less is known about adverse events in other health care settings. An increased understanding of adverse events that occur in this unique setting would better equip health care providers and other stakeholders in taking actions to improve the safety of patient care in rehab hospitals.