Third-party reimbursement of therapeutic recreation services within a national sample of United States hospitals.
The purpose of this study was to determine the status of third-party reimbursement for therapeutic recreation services within three types of hospital classifications: Government, nonfederal (GNF); non-government, not-for-profit (NFP); and investor-owned (IO). A sample of 580 hospitals was drawn by the American Hospital Association through a randomly selected, proportionate sample from the universe of 5,799 GNF, NFP, and IO hospitals. Three hundred-twenty hospitals (55.2 percent) returned usable instruments. Based upon the analysis of 33 therapeutic recreation services approved for third-party reimbursement, it was found that: Significantly more therapeutic recreation directors who gave financing a higher priority tended to direct programs whose services were approved for third-party reimbursement; significantly more therapeutic recreation services were successful in their efforts to obtain third-party reimbursement even though they were denied approval in their initial efforts and approaches to obtain third-party reimbursement; and significantly more IO hospitals with therapeutic recreation services were approved for third-party reimbursement than either GNF or NFP therapeutic recreation services.
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006761:Hospitals / Q000145:classification*; D006777:Hospitals, Proprietary / Q000191:economics; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000191:economics; D006788:Hospitals, Voluntary / Q000191:economics; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010067:Ownership / Q000191:economics*; D011998:Recreation / Q000191:economics*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013812:Therapeutics / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States