skilled nursing facility length of stay

Some patients can be safely discharged from skilled nursing facilities faster than they currently are, a new study has found. And not just a day or two, either:  as much as a week or more. The study focused on patients who had been in SNFs for about 20 days – the point at which Medicare beneficiaries begin shouldering a portion of the cost of their nursing care.  Discharging some of these patients a week early, the study found, did not affect rehospitalization by day 28 for 98 percent of the patients discharged around day 20. The study, its authors assert, [...]