You should enter the SNF a short time (usually 30 days) after leaving the hospital and require specialized services related to your hospital stay. If you don't have a 3-day hospital stay that meets the requirements for hospitalization and you need medical care after you are discharged from the hospital, ask if you can receive care in other settings (such as Home Care near Hainesport NJ) or if there are other programs (such as Medicaid or veterans benefits) that may cover the care you receive at the SNF. If you're in a hospital with primary health syndrome, there may be situations where you need to re-enter the hospital. If this happens, there is no guarantee that a bed will be available to you in the same SNF if you need more specialized care after your hospital stay. Ask the SNF if it can have a bed for you if you need to go back to the hospital.
Also, ask if there is a cost to having the bed to yourself. After leaving the SNF, if you re-enter the same or another SNF within 30 days, you won't need another 3-day hospitalization that meets the requirements to receive additional SNF benefits. This is also true if you stop receiving specialized care while you are in the SNF and return to receiving specialized care within the 30 days. Check with your provider to see if you are eligible for home treatment through the Medicare home health benefit, or if you could be treated safely as an outpatient.
An outpatient is a patient who has not been formally admitted to the hospital as an inpatient. The nursing home may say that Medicare will no longer pay for therapy because the resident is not getting better. A skilled nursing facility is a place where a person can stay for a short period to recover from an injury or illness, and it can also be a long-term residential solution for a person who needs medical or personal care 24 hours a day. For some people, staying in a nursing home is temporary; for example, they have been discharged for short-term care after hospitalization or surgery and need a little extra help to recover. Nursing homes provide a safe alternative for older adults who need high-level, long-term care beyond what assisted living can provide.
It usually covers nursing home stays and can limit healthcare costs, but policies are often very expensive and may be subject to a medical subscription or provide limited benefits. Here, we'll explain more about skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and the circumstances under which Medicare will pay for immediate skilled care. Keep in mind that there are other ways to pay for skilled nursing care, such as long-term care insurance, the veterans' assistance and assistance benefit, and more. The new hospital stay doesn't have to be for the same condition you were treated for during your previous stay.
In some cases, Medicare will pay for a person's stay in a skilled nursing facility for a limited period of time. Nursing homes, or skilled nursing facilities, provide medical and personal care services to people who cannot live safely on their own. If your break in specialized care lasts at least 60 consecutive days, this ends your current benefit period and renews your SNF benefits. For example, if you were admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure but want to be admitted to a skilled nursing facility for an untreated back injury (that didn't happen while you were in the hospital), Medicare won't cover you.
