1202 - Comparing the Effects of Health Disparities on Hospital Readmissions Among Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Consult Patients

Thursday, February 19, 2026

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM AST

Presenting Author(s)

AS

Andrew Saleeb, BS

Medical Student
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Aliso Viejo, California, United States

Co-Author(s)

SW

Sarah A. Welch, DO, MPH

Assistant Professor
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Nashville, Tennessee, United States
MM

Matthew C. Morris, PhD

Associate Professor
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Department of Anesthesiology
Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Submitter(s)

AS

Andrew Saleeb, BS

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Aliso Viejo, California, United States

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine how health insurance and Post-Acute Care (PAC) funding are associated with 30-day readmission rates following hospital discharge in a P</span>hysical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) consult cohort.

Design: In this retrospective cohort of 2 years of hospital encounters which included PM&R consults, insurance was extracted from the electronic medical record and categorized into Private, Medicare, Medicaid, Other, or None. Manual chart review was conducted to identify hospital encounters where uninsured patients received PAC funding.

Results: PM&R consult p</span>atients were predominantly male (60%) and White (70%), with a median age of 60. The most common health insurance was Medicare (n=109; 48%), followed by Private (n=51; 23%), None (n=35; 16%), Medicaid (n=16; 7%), and Other (n=15; 6%). A total of 32 uninsured patients (14%) received PAC funding. Of the 226 hospital encounters, 73 (32%) resulted in 30-day readmissions. Patients readmitted were more likely to be White (n=57; 78%) and have Private insurance (n=25; 34%), and less likely to be uninsured with PAC funding (n=4; 5%). Readmitted and non-readmitted patients demonstrated similar lengths of hospital stay and functional scores. Data from 226 encounters has been collected to date; we anticipate presenting the final results from the 2-year cohort (n=1,508) at the annual meeting.

Conclusions: Approximately one-third of encounters resulted in 30-day readmissions, most of which had Medicare or Private insurance. Patients who were readmitted were more likely to have some form of health insurance, and approximately twice as likely to have Private insurance. Future research is needed to determine whether differences in readmission rates can be attributed to differences in patient characteristics and/or social determinants of health. Improving understanding of the factors that contribute to readmission risk could inform strategies to mitigate observed readmission disparities.