振興醫療財團法人振興醫院圖書館

【E006680] You have probably heard that water offers a unique therapeutic environment which can be harnessed to permit activities that are unachievable on land. Aquatic therapy seems to be “all the rage” these days. It is diffi cult to know exactly how often aquatic therapy is being used overall, but we do have a clear picture of how often it is billed under Medicare outpatients claims. Aquatic therapy is listed as the 14th most frequent outpatient therapy code billed through Medicare (CMS, 2013). In short, aquatic therapy represents just under 1% of all Medicare Part B codes billed by private practice PTs. One percent may not sound like much, but take a moment to consider the not-insignifi cant barriers to the provision of aquatics (e.g., the need for a large body of disinfected water and therapists routinely willing to don swimsuits in December). One percent represents about 1.1 million PT treatments in a year and that number only represents treatments billed out to Medicare Part B. (CMS, 2013) The addition of charges billed to commercial payers, worker’s compensation, Medicaid, and even Medicare Part A would certainly explode that figure.