Mississippi Administrative Code
Title 15 - Mississippi Department of Health
Part 8 - Office of Health Policy and Planning
Subpart 90 - Planning and Resource Development
Chapter 05 - Acute Care Facilities and Services Overview
Section 15-8-90-05-505 - Swing -Bed Programs and Extended Care Services

Federal law allows rural hospitals with fewer than 100 hospital beds to utilize its beds as "swing beds" to provide post-acute extended care services. 42 C.F.R. § 482.58. Hospitals must have a Medicare provider agreement and meet several eligibility and skilled nursing facility service requirements to be granted CMS approval to provide post-hospital extended care services and to be reimbursed as a swing-bed hospital.

Swing-bed hospitals have the same Medicare coverage requirements and coinsurance provisions as nursing facilities. In addition to meeting acute care standards, swing-bed hospitals must also substantially comply with the eight (8) skilled nursing facility services standards listed in 42 C.F.R. § 482.58(b). These standards include resident rights, admission, transfer, and discharge rights, freedom from abuse, neglect, and exploitation, dental services, specialized rehabilitative services, social services, patient activities, and discharge planning. Because many patients, particularly elderly patients, no longer need acute hospital care but are not well enough to go home, swing-beds enable the hospital to provide nursing care, rehabilitation, and social services with a goal of returning patients to their homes. Many of these patients would become nursing home residents without the extended period of care received in a swing-bed.

Swing-beds provide a link between inpatient acute care and home or community-based services in a continuum for the elderly and others with long-term needs. If it is not possible for the patient to return home, the swing-bed hospital assists the patient and their family with nursing home placement. Ideally, the swing-bed concept should help alleviate low utilization problems in small rural hospitals and provide a new revenue source with few additional expenses while also more efficiently utilizing hospital staff during periods of low acute care occupancy.