GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast · Alex Smith, Eric Widera

Rehab and Death in Skilled Nursing Facilities: Sarguni Singh, Christian Furman, and Lynn Flint

December 11, 2025·49 min·4 clips
Christian Fuhrman explains how Medicare's payment system forces dying patients to choose between free rehab and costly hospice care.
This episode explores the challenges of rehab and death in skilled nursing facilities, focusing on misaligned Medicare incentives that often lead patients into cycles of hospital readmissions. Experts discuss policy workarounds, such as skilling for end-of-life care, and propose solutions like a demonstration project for concurrent hospice and SNF benefits to improve patient outcomes.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how rehab, hospice, and SNF transitions can collide for an older patient cycling between settings.

The episode stays with an older patient moving between the hospital and the SNF, where rehab, readmissions, hospice, and the limits of the available benefits keep colliding. It feels most grounded when Mr.

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Why you'd press play

Want a plainspoken take on why repeated hospital and SNF cycles keep happening?

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