Congress Advances Bipartisan Bill to Permanently Authorize Medicare At-Home Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab

Around 1 in 4 Medicare patients eligible for cardiac rehab actually participates — and fewer than 1 in 4 of those who start ever complete the full program

2–4% of Medicare COPD patients eligible for pulmonary rehab ever start it — and existing centers could take roughly 137 years to serve all eligible patients

63% of rural Medicare cardiac patients live more than 15 miles from the nearest rehab facility, vs. 5% of urban patients — and enrollment drops 22.6 percentage points as distance grows

HHS projects that raising cardiac rehab participation from 20% to 70% could save 25,000 lives and prevent 180,000 hospitalizations per year — a target that has never been met

Home-based cardiac rehab shows similar 3–12 month clinical outcomes to center-based programs in low-to-moderate-risk patients — but pulmonary rehab researchers warn telehealth standards are insufficient for higher-risk patients