Skilled nursing care is health care provided by skilled, licensed nurses and rehabilitative professionals under the direction of your physician. This medical team evaluates, observes, treats, and manages your care, usually after an acute illness or injury. The goal of skilled nursing is to help improve your condition and prevent your condition from getting worse. A patient generally receives skilled nursing care for a limited amount of time after a hospitalization. A Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) provides skilled, licensed professionals 24 hours a day.

If you meet the Medicare requirements for a skilled nursing stay, Medicare can cover your expenses for a limited amount of time. Your Medicare benefit will cover a maximum of 100 days. The first 20 days are covered in full. There is a co-pay for days 21-100, as appointed by Medicare. The standard 2022 co-pay is $186 per day. This co-pay typically changes each year.

A Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap), secondary insurance, or Medicaid could potentially cover the cost of your co-pay in full. Although Medicare pays for a maximum of 100 days, there is no guarantee that the facility can bill Medicare for all of those days. Your Medicare stay will be contingent upon your progression and need for skilled nursing services, as defined by Medicare.

Avanté does provide custodial (long-term care) services. Our long-term care typically stays full. We keep a waiting list and will notify patients as a bed becomes available. Patients who enter Avanté for skilled nursing services will have priority on our wait list.

Patients who are receiving skilled nursing care at Avanté have priority on our long-term wait list. Should you need to stay past your allowable Medicare days or decide you want to make Avanté your home, we will do our best to make this transition as smooth as possible. Our clinical and financial team will conduct an assessment for long-term care and do everything within our power to assist you. If there are no long-term care beds available, we will do our best to keep you in a skilled nursing bed until a custodial care bed becomes available.

We want your Avanté experience to be awesome! Our goal is to help you get back to your prior level of function as quickly as possible. We believe the healing process is influenced by a variety of factors, including your feelings and your spiritual beliefs. Under our activities program, we offer Bible study for those who wish to participate. There are a few local churches that rotate services on the weekend. If your church is not among those that routinely provide a service at Avanté but wish to do so, your church representative can coordinate a time/day with our activities director. If you wish to attend your own church, we will do everything within our scope to make this possible.

If you are in a private room and you are in agreement with your family spending the night, we are happy for them to stay. When available, we may even be able to provide an extra bed for their rest. If you are in a semi-private room, we would just need to make sure that everyone is okay with an overnight guest.

An Advanced Directive is a legal document that describes your wishes for your end-of-life care in the event that you may not be able to communicate them. Regardless of your age and health condition, we encourage everyone to complete an advanced directive. Having an advanced directive in place will eliminate confusion and often the guilt your family and friends may feel should they ever have to guess your wishes and make a decision about your end-of-life care. For more information and to obtain a document that conveys your wishes, please visit our Resources section.