Affordable Care Act and Its Impact on Recreational Therapy

Session provided by Mary Ann Keogh Hoss, Ph.D, CTRS, FACHE, FDRT at the American Therapeutic Recreation Association’s 2014 Mid-Year Conference in Rockville, Maryland.

Date: Sunday, March 9, 2014

Mary Ann Keogh-Hoss presented some interesting trends in our field based on the U.S. Dept. of Labor.

The number of people employed in our field has been decreasing during the last decade (2003 to 2013).

The hourly/ annual wage for people employed in our field has been increasing during the last decade (2003 to 2013). 

Where are we employed?

# 1: Nursing homes (may not have Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist credentials).

# 2: Hospitals (general)

# 3: Psychiatric hospitals  

The top paying states for our profession include:

District of Columbia, California, and Connecticut.  

The highest concentration of workers included:

New York, Pennsylvania, and California.

 The cost for care keeps rising. The Affordable Care Act is to cap growth on spending.

There was a decrease in inpatient services and an increase in managed care from 2006 to 2012.

 The big three include: Access, Cost, and Quality  

There is a triple aim that consists of: health of the population, experience of the care, and the per capita cost.

Questions to consider:

What do we (Recreational Therapists) offer (at a local level)?

What services can we provide?

How can we, RTs, help to lower the cost? 

Do patients/ clients leave the hospital sooner?

Do they stay out of hospital longer?

 

How do we measure service in our field?

• Healthy Outcomes
• Disease Burdens

 Here is a good question to ask:

Who gets the job done to get the person functioning at the least cost? It doesn’t matter the discipline.

 

Basically, we want to work ourselves out of a job. If people are not sick, we don’t get paid. We in RT are also very focused on health, wellness, and the preventative process.

Our services are patient-centered. We ask: what does the patient need? What is it that we (RTs) can do to help decrease cost and increase saving? How do we keep people out of the hospital?

We RTs work in both the clinical setting (hospital) and the community setting.

 We, RTs are beyond “feel good activities” or “quality of life.” Of course, I [Danny Pettry] argue that both of those are very good things. However, in a world of expensive care, it is about functioning. People go to hospitals (in example: rehabilitation) to re-gain functioning in order to be as independent as possible. The cost is expensive. In order to provide affordable care, we must we must provide services that are grounded in research t that proves outcomes.

 I [Danny Pettry] am not an expert on the Affordable Care Act. I am aware that there are several areas, which Recreational Therapists are a good fit to provide services. I recommend being a member of the American Therapeutic Recreation Association (ATRA) and read materials provided by the public policy team.

 For more information, go here: http://atra.affiniscape.com/associations/10488/files/FPP2012.pdf