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View Full Version : How does acute long term care work?



Stephen Tashiro
11-28-2013, 3:38 AM
Friends of mine are looking for a facility to give acute long term care to a patient who must be on a ventillator. The facilities contacted say that some party must sign to be responsible for the $200,000 to $300,000 per year cost that will not be covered by Medicare or BLue Cross. This makes me wonder how these facilities work financially. Some possibilities:

1. They only accept patients with wealthy families or recipients of huge settlements from someone's liability insurance.

2. They expect that the patients family will eventually spend most of their resources and that will allow the costs to be paid by Medicaide

3. They expect that the patients family will eventually declare bankruptcy, but the facilities carry some sort of insurance against bankruptcy by patients.

Curt Fuller
11-28-2013, 11:05 AM
Medicaid. But the person's assets must be completely exhausted before they will kick in. Varies from state to state but some will let them keep a home and automobile and $2,000 in cash.

Stephen Tashiro
11-28-2013, 1:02 PM
Varies from state to state

A complication is that there are no long term care facilities for patients on ventillators in the state where the family resides. So they must apply to a facility out-of-state.



but some will let them keep a home and automobile and $2,000 in cash.

I wonder how the cash amount is defined. Generally households have a certain income and certain expenses, so their "cash" is not a static quantity.

Jerry Thompson
11-28-2013, 3:31 PM
Not all facilities will accept Medicaid as it would not pay the expense of caring for a vent patient. I used to be an ICU nurse and a vent patient is very labor intensive. The staff are not just nurses that walk in and start taking care of seriously ill patients. The facility has to be staffed 24/7 and there is a tremendous amount of overhead the public does not consider. The large on is malpractice insurance. A facility has to make money to keep the doors open and make a profit to pay investors and make capital improvements. If not enough is made the investors will go elsewhere and the equipment will end up outdated or usless. Very few people can afford this degree of care. If it were me I would seek out a Medical Social Worker or a Social Workers Group and see what the options are. Good luck and God Bless.

Curt Fuller
11-28-2013, 5:22 PM
A complication is that there are no long term care facilities for patients on ventillators in the state where the family resides. So they must apply to a facility out-of-state.



I wonder how the cash amount is defined. Generally households have a certain income and certain expenses, so their "cash" is not a static quantity.
Stephen, I'm in the learning process myself. There are many places to get help understanding how it works. I would suggest you contact your local human services people to get the answers that fit your situation.