Skilled nursing
A nursing home: licensed nurses on duty around the clock, for medical needs that assisted living cannot meet.
This is probably the right level when
Your parent needs daily nursing — wound care, a feeding tube, IV medication — or is recovering after a hospital stay.
What it costs
Roughly $9,000 to $12,000 a month in Colorado for long-term care. Short rehabilitation stays are often covered by Medicare.
Two quite different things
Short-term rehabilitation is what most people meet first: a few weeks after a fall or an operation, to get strong enough to go home. Medicare usually pays for this, with conditions.
Long-term nursing care is for someone whose medical needs are permanent. That is paid for differently, and is the harder conversation.
What it provides that assisted living cannot
Licensed nurses on site at all times. Doctors visiting. Equipment and staff for wounds, oxygen, feeding tubes, dialysis support and complex medication.
It is a medical setting, and it feels like one. Most families would prefer assisted living if the medical needs allow it — which is worth asking a nurse about directly, because sometimes they do.
Checking quality
Nursing homes are inspected by both Colorado and the federal government, so there is more public information about them than any other care type. Medicare publishes star ratings and inspection findings.
Look at staffing levels, and at whether problems found in one inspection were fixed by the next.
Questions worth asking on a tour
- Is this a rehabilitation stay or long-term care, and who decides when it changes?
- How many registered nurses are on duty on each shift?
- What did your last inspection find, and what did you change?
- If my parent improves, what are the options for moving somewhere less medical?
- How do you keep families informed when something changes?
How families pay for it
- Medicare can pay for a short rehabilitation stay after a qualifying hospital admission — days, not years.
- Long-term nursing care is private pay until savings are spent down, then Health First Colorado (Medicaid) for those who qualify.
- Long-term care insurance generally covers it. This is the care type where financial advice earns its keep.