How do we get Medicare to move Dad closer to our home for Rehab?

Yes the hospital will pay to take to a rehab nearby but not 175 miles away. I didn’t see that he needed a wheelchair. Medicare paid for my mom to be transferred from her small town hospital to a medical center three hours away. She needed care they couldn’t provide. The closer hospitals didn’t have a bed. So that was probably a fluke. She had original Medicare.
But another time when she needed to transfer from the medical center to a rehab closer to her home, I just drove her. She used a walker at home. The hospital staff helped her into my car and then the rehab staff helped her into the rehab. We just used the facilities wheelchairs getting into and out of the Bldgs but she used her walker for rehab. I could handle my mom by myself but asked my brother to help when I had to take my dad on the long trips. But it depends on their condition and your confidence level. I always thought if I ran into a problem I would just go to the nearest ER. Never had a problem.

When my mother was in the hospital, an ambulance took her to the Rehab facility on a non-emergent basis and the ride WAS paid for by Medicare. She does, however, have a $100 co pay per incident, it should be noted. When she was moved from one Rehab to another (at my insistence), a van from Rehab #2 came to pick her up from Rehab #1. She was moved because I found the care at the first place to be abysmal and had it approved for her to be moved to a better facility.

When I moved my mother from rehab facility #2 back to her place in Assisted Living, I hired a van service that catered to wheelchair transportation. It was expensive.........cost her $100 to go 4 miles, but the main costs are the set up fees; the mileage adds to it, of course, but if she'd gone 20 miles or 50 miles, the added fees would not have been THAT outrageous, you know? You may want to Google 'wheelchair transportation' and see what you can find; I'm sure you can find something less expensive than $1200!!!!

You may want to check with your father's policy holder service department to see exactly what's covered and what's not, co pays, etc.

Best of luck!

Yes, Medicare does not pay for non-emergency transport which is what you need. Then you have to consider Medicaid if he may need it. It doesn't go over state lines. So if this move takes him out of the state he resides in, he may need to reside in the new state a certain amt of time before Medicaid will pay for his care.

Why can’t you drive him?

Medicare won’t pay to move him closer to you. You will have to pay out of pocket.