Skilled Nursing (Swing Bed)
Location: Hancock County Health System Memorial Hospital, 532 1st NW, Britt, IA 50423
Get Directions to HCHS Skilled Nursing Unit
For more information on Swing Bed, Skilled Nursing, or Self Pay Care, close to home at HCHS, contact us at 641-843-5200.
We want to help you get well and return to your home or a home-like setting.
Skilled Nursing
After an illness, stroke, injury or surgery, you may be getting better but still need some additional skilled care before returning to a home environment.
Skilled nursing is a level of hospitalization care for patients who require certain services and are extremely beneficial when a patient is ready to leave the acute care level of a hospital stay, but is not yet well enough to return home.
At HCHS, skilled nursing patients are cared for on the Acute Care floor of the hospital by our staff of health care professionals.
If you are a patient coming from another facility, a discharge planner from that facility will assist in transferring you to Hancock County Memorial Hospital (HCMH) for skilled nursing services. In some cases, if you are already a patient at HCMH and need further care, you may stay in the same hospital bed but change your level of care to skilled nursing service.
As a skilled nursing patient at HCMH you will receive our high quality of care, with better staff-to-patient ratios than larger facilities or nursing homes. Patients can recover while they are closer to family, friends and loved ones.
Services
Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance all have their own guidelines regarding skilled nursing care. This makes it important to define your needs to make sure you are receiving the appropriate level of care to qualify for the appropriate coverage.
Skilled nursing services may include, but are not limited to:
- Rehabilitation services such as that following strokes and joint replacements (may include physical, occupational and speech therapies)
- Frequent laboratory monitoring
- IV medications or medications requiring monitoring by professional staff
- Tube feedings and nutritional stabilization
- Wound management/sterile dressing changes
- Qualifying bowel and bladder care
- Respiratory therapy
- Care of decubitus ulcers
- Instructions in ostomy or stoma care
- Terminal care for patients needing pain control or skilled supportive care.
Admission Criteria
Medicare’s qualifications for admission to skilled nursing include:
- Three-day (consecutive) acute level of care stay within the past 30 days
- Physician referral for necessary daily skilled service related to hospitalization
- Medicare Part A (Hospital) Benefit or available days remaining in current benefit period.
Swing Bed Self Pay
Swing Bed Self Pay services are available if justification for acute/skilled level of care is not met and you wish to remain within the hospital on a private-pay basis.
All private-pay charges will be paid on a seven-day basis to prevent any misunderstanding of long-term accumulated charges.
More detailed information regarding Swing Bed Self Pay charges that are most frequently incurred is available upon request.
Who Needs Skilled Nursing Services?
HCMH has the advantage of offering individualized, convenient care with a personal touch.
Patients often choose skilled nursing/ swing bed services at HCMH because they can be closer to home and more convenient for the family and friends involved in their care.
Types of patients that are candidates for Skilled Nursing/Swing Bed include, but are not limited to:
- Joint replacements or other orthopedic surgery patients needing frequent physical therapy.
- Stroke patients who need to improve their level of functioning with continued therapy.
- Cardiac patients needing skilled activity programs following a heart attack or acute episode of congestive heart failure.
- Patients requiring wound management/ sterile dressing changes
- Patients with long-term illnesses such as cancer or immune deficiency disease.
- Patients recovering from illnesses requiring continued IV therapy.