Spitzer KA, Stefan MS, Priya A, et al. - As guidelines suggest pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) following hospitalization for an exacerbation of COPD, but few patients enroll in PR, therefore, researchers investigated if regional difference and racial disparities in receipt of PR could be explained by the density of PR programs. For this purpose, they analyzed CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) data from 223,832 Medicare beneficiaries who had a hospitalization for COPD during 2012 and were eligible for PR after discharge. They used Hospital-Referral Regions as the unit of analysis. Findings revealed higher rates of PR, for non-Hispanic white but not black beneficiaries, in relation to greater PR program density.