Even so, as hospital stays become shorter and patients with complicated illnesses are treated in other settings, it makes sense to revisit whether the three days is the right cutoff to identify people who can appropriately transfer to a skilled nursing facility, said David Grabowski, a health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Certain patients may also benefit from leaving the hospital sooner, because longer stays can increase their risk of infections and make it less likely that they get out of bed for physical activity that can aid recovery, Grabowski, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“Some individuals with short hospital stays may be inappropriately excluded from skilled nursing facility care under the current system,” he said. “Moreover, this rule has led to some unintended consequences like the growth in observational stays.”
“There really aren’t many benefits to staying beyond medical necessity,” Grabowski added.
