Kicked Out Of Rehab

[VonHess]

My father is 83 years old and over the past 6 months has had severe depression. This has caused him to sleep most of the day and to have no appetite. As a result, he has gone from being fairly active to physically depleted nearly to the point of being immobile. He was admitted to the hospital for a kidney infection and subsequently sent to the physical rehab part of the hospital to try to get some of his strength back. He was also prescribed an antidepressant. He stayed in the rehab facility but would not participate in the physical rehabilitation. Nothing other than the medication was done to address what I thought was the main problem-severe depression. He was there for about 2 weeks and then discharged from the rehab when it was reported to Medicare that he would not participate in the physical therapy, I know this is the standard protocol and in alot of cases understandable. However, shouldnt the hospital have first adressed the main problem- Depression? Shouldnt they have given him time for the antidepressant to work (this sometimes can take weeks). If the hospital had reported to Medicare that his problem was depression, would Medicare have covered a longer stay? I continually asked the nurses, doctors etc these questions and really got no answers, just 'I'll need to check', even from doctors.