OHD Learn · Provider Type Guide

Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities

Treat patients recovering from serious illness or injury through intensive, structured therapy — with the goal of returning them home.

What Is This Type of Facility

Focused on rebuilding ability and independence.

An inpatient rehabilitation facility is a federally designated hospital — or a distinct unit within a hospital — that provides intensive rehabilitation services to patients recovering from serious conditions such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and hip fracture. To qualify for Medicare reimbursement as an inpatient rehabilitation facility, at least 60 percent of patients must have one of 13 designated medical conditions specified in federal regulations.1 This rule, known as the "60 percent rule," defines the population these facilities serve.

Care is provided by a coordinated team that typically includes physicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and rehabilitation nurses.

The goal of every admission is a defined functional outcome: the patient returns home with a measurable improvement in their ability to care for themselves and move around. CMS tracks whether that goal is being met — and compares each facility's results to what would be expected given the severity of patients they treat.

What the Data Covers

Six areas of measurement — each capturing a different phase of the rehabilitation process.

The federal government reports quality data on inpatient rehabilitation facilities quarterly. The measures fall into six natural groups. Together they track the full arc of a rehabilitation stay — from safety during care to outcomes after discharge.

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Functional Outcomes at Discharge
The core question in rehabilitation: did the patient leave more capable than when they arrived? CMS tracks this separately for self-care ability (dressing, bathing, eating) and mobility (walking, transfers, climbing stairs), then combines them into a single discharge function score. Each measure compares actual results to what was predicted given the patient's condition on admission.
  • Self-care ability at discharge — observed versus expected
  • Mobility at discharge — observed versus expected
  • Combined discharge function score
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Conditions Treated
Inpatient rehabilitation facilities are the only provider type for which CMS publicly reports the volume of patients treated by medical condition. This lets you understand what a facility actually specializes in — whether it primarily serves stroke patients, joint replacement patients, or another population. Counts below 11 are suppressed to protect patient privacy.
  • Stroke
  • Nervous system disorder (excluding stroke)
  • Brain injury — traumatic and non-traumatic
  • Spinal cord injury and disease
  • Hip or femur fracture
  • Hip or knee replacement, amputation, or other bone and joint condition
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Getting Patients Home
What share of patients are discharged back to their home or community, rather than transferred to another institution? This measure is risk-adjusted to account for the severity of illness and complexity of the patient population. Facilities are rated as performing better than, no different than, or worse than the national rate.
  • Observed discharge to community rate
  • Risk-standardized discharge to community rate
  • Comparison to national average
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Readmissions — Two Measures
Inpatient rehabilitation facilities are measured on readmissions in two distinct ways that no other post-acute setting tracks: readmissions that occur during the rehabilitation stay, and potentially preventable readmissions within 30 days after discharge. Both are risk-standardized and compared to the national rate.
  • Potentially preventable readmissions during the rehabilitation stay
  • Potentially preventable readmissions 30 days after discharge
  • Risk-standardized rates with confidence intervals
  • Comparison to national average for both measures
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Infections and Patient Safety
Two federally tracked infections are reported for inpatient rehabilitation facilities: catheter-associated urinary tract infections and C. difficile. Both use a standardized infection ratio that compares each facility's actual infections to the predicted number given their patient population. Falls with major injury and new or worsening pressure injuries are tracked as separate safety measures.
  • Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI)
  • C. difficile infections
  • Falls with major injury
  • New or worsening pressure injuries
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Care Transitions, Medication Safety, and Spending
Three measures track whether medications were reviewed and flagged issues followed up on, and whether a complete medication list was passed to the next care setting and to the patient and family at discharge. Medicare also reports what it spends per patient episode at each facility, standardized for local cost of living — a score above 1.0 means this facility costs more than the national average for similar patients.
  • Medication review with follow-up on issues identified
  • Medication list provided to next care setting
  • Medication list provided to patient and family at discharge
  • Medicare spending per beneficiary score
About the Data

Where the data comes from and how often it is updated.

All quality data for inpatient rehabilitation facilities is published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as part of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Quality Reporting Program. Facilities that participate in Medicare are required to submit this data — making coverage broad across the roughly 1,100 facilities that currently report.

The data is updated quarterly. Most measures reflect a rolling 12-month collection window. The three outcomes measures — readmissions during stay, readmissions post-discharge, discharge to community, and Medicare spending — are based on 24 months of data and refreshed annually. The flu vaccination measure for healthcare personnel reflects a single six-month flu season and refreshes annually. Historical releases are preserved, making it possible to track how a facility's performance has changed over time.

Sources
  1. 42 C.F.R. § 412.29(b)(2) — the "60 percent rule" for inpatient rehabilitation facility classification. See also CMS Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility PPS
  2. CMS Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Quality Reporting Program Data Dictionary, Version 6.0, December 2025 — CMS Provider Data Catalog