Short-term rehabilitation and long-term nursing care often happen inside the same building, under the same Comprehensive Care Facility license, but Medicare treats them very differently: it may cover a limited rehab stay after a qualifying inpatient hospital admission, but it does not pay for long-term custodial nursing care.
The observation-status trap
Medicare's skilled-nursing benefit requires a qualifying inpatient hospital admission. Time spent under “observation status” does not count, even after several nights in a hospital bed. Ask the hospital directly, in writing, whether your parent was admitted as an inpatient.
Why the same building houses both populations
Indiana licenses nursing homes as Comprehensive Care Facilities, a single license type covering both short-term rehabilitation patients and long-term residents -- the license does not distinguish between the two populations, even though their goals, expected length of stay, and payment sources are completely different.
