Pulmonary Rehabilitation

I am contacting you on behalf of 18 national pulmonary societies to invite you to join our campaign to improve awareness, access, and funding for pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) in patients with chronic respiratory disease.

Our focus is to alert patients, providers, and payers of the multi-dimensional benefits of PR. The impetus for this effort is based on the recent demonstration by Lindenauer et al of a substantial survival benefit for COPD patients receiving PR after hospitalization and Guler et al who identified improved survival in fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) patients who attended ≥ 80% of planned PR sessions. We suspect that this benefit extends to other chronic pulmonary diseases and adds to the already well-demonstrated benefits of improved function, symptoms, mood, and quality of life, as well as a reduction in exacerbations.

Please help with the following:

• Send the attached advocacy letter to your contacts, e.g., members, insurance companies, persons with COPD and other chronic lung diseases, and elected officials.
• Join us for a social media blitz during Pulmonary Rehabilitation week March 13-19. Please share the attached infographic with your logo on your social media pages using your hashtag and #PRWeek2022 and #PulmonaryRehabiliationMatters.
• Social media considerations: Launch March 13^th and share throughout the week. Options for social media messages:
  • Pulmonary Rehab improves the lives of individuals living with lung disease but only 3-4% of Medicare beneficiaries with COPD receive this intervention
  • Did you know that individuals with COPD who receive PR within 3 months of discharge have a 37% reduced mortality? Lindenhauer et al
  • Did you know that individuals with ILD / Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) have a 33% increased survival rate after attending > 80% of planned pulmonary rehab? Guler et al
  • Poll: Pulmonary Rehab can improve… A) mortality, B) exercise capacity, C) Quality of Life, D) all of the above
  • Poll: Which percent of Medicare beneficiaries with COPD receive pulmonary rehabilitation? A) 3-4%, B) 5-6%, C) 9-10%.
  • It's #PRWeek2022! What are you & your teams doing to celebrate and promote PR? Leave a comment below.

We hope that better recognition of PR as the standard of care for symptomatic lung disease will lay a foundation to support more equitable access and payment for this key intervention.

Please let us know if you have questions or if we can be of further help.

Sincerely,
The ATS Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly US Reimbursement Working Group

We thank Enya Daynes and Mollie Corbett, Executive Director of AACVPR for their important contributions.