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By MELODY JAMESON
mj@observernews.net
Prompted by new Medicare requirements, South Bay Hospital is rearranging one area of its outpatient services.
Patients for whom Phase II of cardio-pulmonary therapy is being prescribed no longer can enroll in and obtain this treatment in the hospital’s free-standing physical therapy center near the facility.
Instead, new cardiac patients scheduled for the after-surgery therapy are being referred to South Bay’s sister facility, Brandon Regional Hospital. The Brandon hospital complex, located on Oakfield Drive south of S.R. 60, is a cardiac center as well as a Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) unit.
The change is effective now, but patients currently involved in the 36-appointment, post-surgery, out-patient physical therapy in the hospital’s facility on Upper Creek Drive will be able to complete their programs locally, according to Melissa Morgan, South Bay spokesperson.
No new Phase II enrollees have been accepted since December 31, 2009, and programs for current Phase II enrollees are expected to conclude by March 16, 2010, she added.
Cardiac patients who undergo open heart surgery, for example, frequently are prescribed several phases of post-surgery therapy as part of the gradual recovery process, Morgan said. The first phase after surgery takes place in the hospital under close medical supervision, she added.
The second phase of physical exercise for the recovering cardiac patient normally is conducted under supervision by specifically-trained personnel over a period of weeks on an out-patient basis. Following successful completion of earlier programs, subsequent phases of cardiac patient exercise could be more patient-directed.
The change at South Bay has been driven by a new Medicare requirement related to mandated staffing during Phase II programs which became effective January 1, Morgan indicated. The new Medicare rule calls for maintaining onsite in the physical therapy facility a medical specialist in cardio-pulmonary conditions throughout the course of Phase II therapy.
Such physicians and other professionals specializing in cardiac and pulmonary conditions always have been available within the hospital itself, Morgan pointed out, but not always in the free-standing physical therapy center located approximately a block west of the hospital where Phase II enrollees have been participating in their supervised exercise programs. Hospital management has opted to not assign the now-required specialist to its separate physical therapy center.
In addition, Morgan emphasized that cardiac surgery such as open heart procedures are not performed at South Bay Hospital, but well could be performed by area cardiac surgeons at the Brandon hospital. If the surgery and the first phase of post-surgery activity for the patient are conducted in the Brandon cardiac unit, there’s a certain consistency achieved by continuing the second phase of physical exercise also at the Brandon facility, she said.
After mid-March, cardiac patients in a Phase III exercise program, who have had to engage in their physical activities on equipment relocated from the therapy center and installed within the hospital building, will be able to return to the Upper Creek Drive facility, Morgan said. “They are,“ she added, “ quite happy about that. “
© 2010 Melody Jameson
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