Monday, July 7

Today, Tommy's doctor at the rehab center told me that on Thursday the treatment team (doctor, therapists, nursing staff, social worker) will meet to assess how Tommy has done so far, determine what goals are realistic for him, and then adjust his therapy plan accordingly. He also said that Tommy has a "long road" to recovery, but that although his progress is slow, it's steady.
Later, the social worker told me that because of all the "complicated Medicare criteria," Tommy's stay would probably be 28 days. She actually rolled her eyes when she said the word "criteria", not an encouraging moment. She has all of his insurance information (he has a medigap policy with State Farm in addition to Medicare), but I don't want to assume that the medigap policy wouldn't help him to stay longer. So, when I got home, I studied Tommy's medigap policy to see if it might add possible days to his stay at this center, and the language was such gobbledygook I couldn't figure it out. Example: it talked about paying partially for stays at things like a "hospital" or a "skilled nursing facility" but then when I flipped to its "definitions" page, it defined skilled nursing facility as, and I quote, "Skilled Nursing Facility means a facility defined as such in the Medicare program." Oh boy. This stuff is going to tax my brain. I am going over to the State Farm office this morning to pick their brains about what kind of coverage, if any, this policy offers for an acute rehab center--i.e., does it fall under the SNF definition?--and about what else it covers. Isn't there a great big flying nun out there who swoops in and says, "Don't worry, I'm the health-services interpreter who will explain this trick language to you"?