1. Cardiac Rehabilitation and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Persistent Declines in Cardiac Rehabilitation Participation and Access Among US Medicare Beneficiaries.
- Author
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Varghese, Merilyn S, Beatty, Alexis L, Song, Yang, Xu, Jiaman, Sperling, Laurence S, Fonarow, Gregg C, Keteyian, Steven J, McConeghy, Kevin W, Penko, Joanne, Yeh, Robert W, Figueroa, Jose F, Wu, Wen-Chih, and Kazi, Dhruv S
- Subjects
Humans ,Aged ,Medicaid ,Medicare ,United States ,Pandemics ,Cardiac Rehabilitation ,COVID-19 ,cardiac rehabilitation ,pandemics ,Rehabilitation ,Health Services ,Clinical Research ,Good Health and Well Being ,Cardiorespiratory Medicine and Haematology ,Public Health and Health Services ,Cardiovascular System & Hematology - Abstract
BackgroundThe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participation in and availability of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is unknown.MethodsAmong eligible Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, we evaluated, by month, the number of CR sessions attended per 100 000 beneficiaries, individuals eligible to initiate CR, and centers offering in-person CR between January 2019 and December 2021. We compared these outcomes between 2 periods: December 1, 2019 through February 28, 2020 (period 1, before declaration of the pandemic-related national emergency) and October 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021 (period 2, the latest period for which data are currently available).ResultsIn period 1, Medicare beneficiaries participated in (mean±SD) 895±84 CR sessions per 100 000 beneficiaries each month. After the national emergency was declared, CR participation sharply declined to 56 CR sessions per 100 000 beneficiaries in April 2020. CR participation recovered gradually through December 2021 but remained lower than prepandemic levels (period 2: 698±29 CR sessions per month per 100 000 beneficiaries, P=0.02). Declines in CR participation were most marked among dual Medicare and Medicaid enrollees and patients residing in rural areas or socially vulnerable communities. There was no statistically significant change in CR eligibility between the 2 periods. Compared with 2618±5 CR centers in period 1, there were 2464±7 in period 2 (P
- Published
- 2022