Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility (IRF) Law and Legal Definition
Inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) is an inpatient rehabilitation hospital or part of a rehabilitation hospital, which provides an intensive rehabilitation program to inpatients. IRF provides skilled nursing care to inpatients on a 24-hour basis, under the supervision of a doctor and a registered professional nurse.
Inpatient rehabilitation facility must be licensed under applicable state laws to carry out the skilled nursing care. IRF covers daily charges for room and board, ancillary charges, routine charges and charges for other services ordinarily covered in a general hospital. Routine services are not paid as items separate from accommodation charges, whereas ancillary charges, if covered, are paid apart from the charge for room accommodation. Routine services charges include medical social services, general nursing services, items furnished routinely and relatively uniformly to all patients, items which are utilized by individual patients but which are reusable and expected to be available in an institution providing a skilled level of care and special dietary supplements used for tube feeding or oral feeding, such as elemental high nitrogen diet.
