My brother's wife is demented and was placed in a memory care facility. When she fell and broke her pelvis, she was transferred to a rehab facility. He plans to take her back to the same memory care facility when she has recovered enough. I am wondering if they do hold beds at all. What happens if her bed was given to another, and there are no beds left? Would Medicare pay for the bed while it is on hold, waiting for her return?
Just read the Memory Care contract and the Long-term care contract. I agree that as long as she is paying for her MC room, it will be held. That does not mean the LTC contract will. They may require she needs to be living there or only so many days that they will pay without her living there.
Might be worth it, if you like the place, to self pay for the time she's away.
Read the MC contract. For my Mom she paid her room and board and care for two weeks when she was in Rehab. After that, the care part of her monthly cost was dropped. How long they would have held her room I have no idea. She was released from Rehab after 18 days.
If Long-term care insurance is paying for her MC, you need to find out how long they will cover her if she is not living at the MC for a period of time.
Confer with the administration in the facility.
Medicare does not pay for long term care, therefore does not come into play here. Medicaid may cover for a limited time (is she also has Medicaid long term care coverage in addition to her "teacher's long term coverage" one may "wrap around the other," so check with her "teacher's coverage" and also find out if there is any Medicaid coverage at play, then check with your specific State Medicaid long term care program.
Of course, most facilities will allow a private bed hold pay for a specified number of days. That is typically outlined in the paperwork signed (the contract) when she was admitted. If the box "will you pay for a private bed hold" (or similar language was NOT check in that original paperwork) it may be worth contacting the business office of that facility to work out a private pay bed hold now.
Most facilities will only allow a limited number of bed hold days. Where we are, our State Medicaid program has a bed hold for an only few days. My mom's facility allows a 45 private pay bed hold, at $480 per day (or for about $22K if we had to do that for the full 45 days). Thankfully, there has been no need.
Good luck with this.
However, most places will have a limit on how long they'll hond a room. If someone's in rehab for months or their return looks iffy, they may say no after a certain time.
I could speculate that if the memory care is paid by the month rather than by day, they wouldn't charge a separate fee for holding a bed that has already been rented for the full month. So check the memory care contract as well.