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Investing.com -- Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE:EHC) stock fell 3.6% following a New York Times (NYSE:NYT) report highlighting safety concerns at rehabilitation hospitals, including several serious incidents at Encompass facilities.
The Times investigation revealed that some rehabilitation hospitals run by Encompass Health, the dominant company in the sector, and other for-profit corporations have experienced rare but serious incidents of patient harm and perform below average on two key safety measures tracked by Medicare.
The report detailed several fatal incidents at Encompass Health facilities, including a 73-year-old patient who was fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide during construction at the company’s Huntington, West Virginia hospital. At another Encompass facility in Jackson, Tennessee, a 68-year-old patient was found dead in a "pool of blood" after a bed alarm had been turned off. Additionally, at the company’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota hospital, a patient died following a medication error.
According to the Times, federal health officials do not inform consumers about these incidents or impose fines on rehabilitation hospitals the way they do for nursing homes. Medicare also doesn’t provide easy-to-understand five-star ratings for these facilities as it does for general hospitals.
The rehabilitation hospital sector has become a highly lucrative segment of the healthcare industry, with Encompass Health being a major player in this space. The company operates a network of inpatient rehabilitation facilities across the United States.
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