Skilled nursing is a term that refers to a patient’s need of care or treatment that can only be done by licensed nurses. Get the facts on skilled nursing with this review of this branch of medical care and the patients served by it.
Examples of skilled nursing needs include complex wound dressings, rehabilitation, tube feedings or rapidly changing health status. A number of patients may have a health status that changes quickly.
This includes accident victims or people who’ve developed or contracted a serious illness. People who have experienced
Skilled nursing facilities, oftentimes referred to as nursing homes, are residential facilities where patients can receive skilled nursing services 24 hours a day. Medicare will pay for skilled nursing facility services if a physician has deemed that a patient requires skilled nursing care and the following services will help patients meet their health goals.
Services covered by Medicare include meals, both physical and occupational therapy, medications, social services, medical equipment and supplies used in the skilled nursing facility. Medicare also covers speech-language pathology services and ambulance transportation to a medical facility that has the services a patient needs if it’s too dangerous for the patient to travel by other means and the services in question aren’t available at the skilled nursing facility.