“Though hospitals are legally obligated to find suitable places to discharge patients (for example, to their homes, rehabilitation facilities or nursing homes), their insurance status makes all the difference.”

Lorenzo Gritti for NPR

by John Henning Schumann

“In an emergency, hospitals, by law, must treat any patient in the U.S. until he or she is stabilized, regardless of the patient’s immigration status or ability to pay.

“Yet, when it comes time for the hospitals to discharge these patients, the same standard doesn’t apply.

“Though hospitals are legally obligated to find suitable places to discharge patients (for example, to their homes, rehabilitation facilities or nursing homes), their insurance status makes all the difference.

“Several years ago I began caring for a man who’d been in our hospital for more than three months. He was in his 50s and had suffered a stroke. Half his body was paralyzed and he couldn’t swallow food. After weeks of intensive physical, occupational and speech therapy, he regained his abilities to eat, drink and walk with only minimal help. But he still wasn’t well enough to live on his own, prepare food or even get to the toilet by himself.

“Ideally, we would have discharged him from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility so he could continue therapy and make more progress toward his prestroke state.”

Click here to continue reading this National Public Radio [NPR] article.