Long-Term Care Hospitals

A recent story from the New York Times highlights the role of long-term care hospitals in carrying for elders. For Older Patients, an ‘Afterworld’ of Hospital Care explains that for these long-term care hospitals, sometimes referred to as ” a long-term acute care hospital”… is where patients often land when an ordinary hospital is ready to discharge them, often after a stay in intensive care.But these patients are still too sick to go home, too sick even for most nursing homes.” 

Never heard of these LTCH?  There are a fair number of them, and they treat quite a large number of individuals.”Close to 400 such hospitals operate around the country, some free-standing, others located within other hospitals, most for-profit. They provide daily physician visits, high nurse-to-patient ratios and intensive therapy…In 2017, they accounted for about 174,000 hospital stays. Medicare covered about two-thirds of them, at a staggering cost of $4.5 billion, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has reported.”

A recent study published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society notes poorer outcomes for these individuals. The article notes that there is a decline in the use of these hospitals, with tighter regulations and more stringent patient requirements.  Oftentimes the LTCH is a stop between the hosptial and nursing home.  This “should prompt frank discussions among families, doctors and patients about whether a frail older person leaving an intensive care unit or standard hospital truly wants to spend another month or more in an L.T.C.H. and then move to a nursing home, which is the likely scenario.”  There are other options and the article notes the importance of having a conversation with the patient and family about them.