Medicare has required therapy to begin within 36 hours of admission to an inpatient rehabilitation facility for years. That is worth stating first, because the requirement is frequently reported as though it were new.
What the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has actually proposed is narrower and, for patients, arguably more consequential. Under the existing regulation, it has been ambiguous whether one therapy discipline or all of them must start inside the window. CMS has proposed revising the rule so that all therapy treatments or evaluations must begin no later than 36 hours after midnight on the day of admission.
