Insurance pre-certification leads to delay in discharge, increased length of stay (LOS), and increased hospital costs for stroke patients, a recent study found. Researchers performed a retrospective chart review of 1,007 patients who were admitted to a comprehensive stroke center with the primary diagnosis of stroke over a 12-month period. Out of the patient pool, 289 patients met the inclusion criterion of a primary diagnosis of stroke that required discharge to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) or inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF). They found:

• Of the total patients who met the inclusion criteria, 118 required insurance pre-certification and 171 did not require pre-certification before being discharged to a SNF or IRF.
• All 118 patients who required precertification had private health insurance.
• The patients who required insurance pre-certification had an average delay of discharge (DOD) of 1.5 days, and those patients who did not require pre-certification had an average DOD of .8 days.
• After removing the outliers, the difference in the LOS between the 2 groups became statistically significant.