Benefits for outpatient rehabilitation services
Stryker's medical plan covers short-term outpatient rehabilitation services (including habilitative services) for:
- Physical therapy
- Occupational therapy
- Manipulative treatment (chiropractic and spinal manipulation)
- Speech therapy
- Post-cochlear implant aural therapy
- Vision therapy
- Cognitive rehabilitation therapy following a post-traumatic brain injury or cerebral vascular accident
- Pulmonary rehabilitation therapy
- Cardiac rehabilitation therapy
For all rehabilitation services, a licensed therapy provider, under the direction of a physician (when required by state law), must perform the services. Benefits include rehabilitation services provided in a physician's office or on an outpatient basis at a hospital or alternate facility. Rehabilitative services provided in a covered member's home by a home health agency are covered as home health care. Rehabilitative services provided in a covered member's home other than by a home health agency are provided as described in this section.
Benefits can be denied or shortened for covered member who is not progressing in goal-directed rehabilitation services or if rehabilitation goals have previously been met. Benefits under this section are not available for maintenance/preventive treatment.
For outpatient rehabilitation services for speech therapy, the Plan will pay benefits for the treatment of disorders of speech, language, voice, communication and auditory processing only when the disorder results from injury, stroke, cancer, congenital anomaly, or developmental delay.
For the purpose of this benefit, "habilitative services" means covered health services that help a person keep, learn or improve skills and functioning for daily living. Habilitative services are skilled when all of the following are true:
- The services are part of a prescribed plan of treatment or maintenance program that is provided to maintain a covered member's current condition or to prevent or slow further decline.
- It is ordered by a physician and provided and administered by a licensed provider.
- It is not delivered for the purpose of assisting with activities of daily living, including dressing, feeding, bathing or transferring from a bed to a chair.
- It requires clinical training in order to be delivered safely and effectively.
- It is not custodial care.
UnitedHealthcare will determine if benefits are available by reviewing both the skilled nature of the service and the need for physician-directed medical management. Therapies provided for the purpose of general well-being or conditioning in the absence of a disabling condition are not considered habilitative services. A service will not be determined to be "skilled" simply because there is not an available caregiver.
Benefits are provided for habilitative services provided for covered members with a disabling condition when both of the following conditions are met:
- The treatment is administered by a licensed speech-language pathologist, licensed audiologist, licensed occupational therapist, licensed physical therapist, or physician.
- The initial or continued treatment must be proven and not experimental or investigational.
Benefits for habilitative services do not apply to those services that are solely educational in nature or otherwise paid under state or federal law for purely educational services. Custodial care, respite care, day care, therapeutic recreation, educational/vocational training and residential treatment are not habilitative services. A service or treatment plan that does not help the covered member to meet functional goals is not a habilitative service.
The Plan may require that the following be provided: medical records, or other necessary data to allow the Plan to prove medical treatment is needed. When the treating provider expects that continued treatment is or will be required to allow the covered member to achieve progress, UHC may request additional medical records.
Benefits for durable medical equipment and prosthetic devices, when used as a component of habilitative services, are described under "Durable medical equipment (DME)."