Knowledge About Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Acceptance of Infant Monoclonal Antibody for RSV and RSV Vaccination During Pregnancy.

Skilled home healthcare (SHHC) services, a Medicare Part A benefit, provides in-home services on an intermittent basis to beneficiaries who meet Medicare’s definition for being homebound and require skilled services such as nursing, physical, occupational or speech therapy. SHHC services are commonly ordered for patients at the time of discharge from acute care hospitals and may also be ordered for patients living in the community who have not been recently hospitalized. At the time of this study, SHHC services could only be ordered by physicians, but now can also be ordered by nurse practitioners and physician assistants (). Medicare beneficiaries receiving SHHC are a high-need high-cost population who commonly experience multiple chronic conditions and functional impairment () and are at high risk for hospital readmission (). Effective communication and care coordination between ordering physicians and SHHC clinicians who deliver care are imperative, especially during the transition from hospital to home (; ). Challenges in communication and care coordination between SHHC clinicians and physicians have been hypothesized to contribute to high hospital readmission rates and other gaps in quality (; ). A recent national survey of physicians found they did not engage meaningfully with SHHC clinicians or act on SHHC plans of care. Approximately 80% of physicians spent little time reviewing SHHC orders, rarely or never changed an SHHC order or contacted SHHC clinicians with questions about information in orders ().