At-home bodily remedy supplier Luna launched a new research on Tuesday detailing the efficacy of its post-surgery rehabilitation program. The research, which was performed by the startup, demonstrated that the Luna Pathways program did an excellent job of decreasing sufferers’ ache, rising care plan adherence, and reducing avoidable hospital readmissions and emergency division visits.
Based in 2018, Nashville-based Luna operates in 27 states and employs 3,000 bodily therapists. Utilizing the corporate’s platform, surgeons can refer sufferers to the Luna Pathways at-home bodily remedy program, and sufferers usually schedule their first go to inside 72 hours of their surgical procedure.
For the research, Luna reviewed the medical data of 456 sufferers who took half in its rehabilitation program after present process a complete hip or knee alternative surgical procedure in 2022.
This system is designed to ship coordinated postoperative care in sufferers’ properties and be sure that they’re assembly the restoration timelines that their surgeons have established. To make sure constant and high quality care, the identical therapist treats the affected person for everything of their care plan. Luna’s app additionally permits sufferers to speak with their bodily therapist and focus on their care wants between visits.
“It’s distinctive because it’s probably the most technology-enabled program of its sort,” claimed Palak Shah, Luna’s co-founder and head of medical companies, in an interview. “It doesn’t depend on paper handouts or workers members remembering to inform/monitor sure occasions. Therapists are prompted through the go to to reply particular questions, and people solutions are robotically escalated, when acceptable, to the surgeon’s group.”
This system accepts business insurance coverage and Medicare, and in addition presents a self-pay possibility.
In keeping with Luna’s research, the typical variety of visits accomplished by a affected person within the Luna Pathways program is 14.5, and 64% of sufferers in this system accomplished at the least 10 visits. Throughout consumption after which after each 5 visits, Luna’s therapists acquire sufferers’ progress knowledge.
Luna sufferers’ self-reported ache ranges had been nearly 30% lower than trade benchmarks for sufferers at 90 days post-surgery. Sufferers in Luna’s program additionally had superior vary of movement of their knees — their knee joint’s vary of movement was 119.5 levels, in comparison with a 90-day postoperative trade customary of 110 levels.
The Luna Pathways program additionally improved sufferers’ adherence to their care plans. Luna sufferers had been 18% extra prone to full greater than 10 visits in comparison with sufferers receiving bodily remedy at clinics, based on the research.
Moreover, the research mentioned this system decreased prices related to hospital readmissions and emergency division visits, as Luna therapists had been in a position to rapidly escalate sufferers’ medical considerations to their doctor. The research mentioned that 5.6% of all whole hip and knee alternative sufferers find yourself readmitted to the hospital inside 90 days, which ends up in prices starting from $10,000 to $27,000. It additionally mentioned that about 15% of sufferers go to the emergency division inside 30 days of a complete joint alternative surgical procedure, although most of those circumstances may have been handled in a health care provider’s workplace. Luna didn’t present data on how most of the sufferers in its program went to the emergency room or had been readmitted to the hospital, although.
Luna faces two lessons of rivals, Shah mentioned. The primary are digital bodily remedy startups like Sword Well being and Hinge Well being. As an alternative of sending therapists to sufferers’ properties, these firms ship digital care, which isn’t very well-suited for bodily remedy, she identified. Luna additionally competes with conventional bodily remedy clinics, however the startup presents sufferers far more comfort as a result of they don’t should journey to a facility for care, Shah defined.
Photograph: Luna