By skyforbes My mother recently went long term in a nursing home. She previously in short term rehab under Medicare there and of course was getting actual physical therapy 5 days a week. She is currently Medicaid Pending long term in the nursing home. Do nursing homes have to continue to provide daily physical therapy when a patient is a long term 24/7 care patient in a nursing home setting? We were told by the facility that regular PT was unavailable as it is not covered by Medicaid? Is this true? The only thing they offer is someone comes around 2 or 3 times a week for and walks her in the hall. Thats literally it. No other forms of exercise other than group wheelchair exercises at 10am every morning. Do some nursing homes offer more comprehensive PT to their long term patients than others even if its not officially covered by Medicaid?
My mother is now wasting away with no real exercise that can really help her. The 3 months she was in the rehab she just could not progress enough to regain even enough strength to be able to stand up independently with a walker to be able to do bed to chair transfers and such. The neuropathy in her legs really made it hard for her to bounce back Prior to her fall in October where she broke her hip she was still relatively independent mobilitywise. Still even climbing the stairs. At most I would love to see her be able to have a bit more independence in her daily living at the facility. I find it crazy that daily PT is not a standard of care in nursing homes for their long term patients if the patient is willing to participate. I suspect had she continued to have PT she might have over time had some more recovery. I feel like not having PT at all is a speeding her deterioration and is a missed opportunity for her to regain more strength.