Tampa, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/05/2014 -- Because of diminishing reimbursements from Medicare, skilled nursing facilities are increasingly adopting pneumatic compression therapy and other low-cost approaches to preventing deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

DVT is a serious, costly and sometimes fatal condition that can be acquired when hospital patients are stuck in bed after an injury, illness or surgery. But recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services added DVT to the growing list of hospital-acquired conditions for which it will not reimburse many healthcare providers.

For many years, blood-thinning drug therapy has been the standard preventative treatment for DVT. But the FDA and experts agree that even the newest blood-thinning medications carry a significant risk of excessive or even fatal bleeding. The cost of the drugs, added to the costs associated with the potential side effects, have sent skilled nursing facilities looking for other treatments.

“With recent changes to Medicare reimbursement, skilled nursing facilities face a pressing need for DVT prevention options that reduce complexity and liability, and that do so at an advantageous cost,” said Greg Grambor, president of Vascular PRN, a company that distributes pneumatic compression therapy equipment. “As a result, we are seeing enormous new demand for pneumatic compression therapy.”

Compression therapy has been used for decades in some sectors of surgical recovery. In the past 10 years, use has expanded as advances in compression technology have coincided with better research data. More than 15 major studies, including one from Harvard Medical School, have concluded that compression therapy decreases DVT risk by 60 percent while posing little other risk to patients.

A recent study presented at the European Stroke Conference praised compression therapy as an effective, non-invasive and safe way to assist in the prevention of blood clots. The authors predict that as more studies about compression therapy are published, compression therapy will become the new standard for blood clot prevention.

Learn more at http://www.vascularprn.com/.