I'm going to take the bull by the horns and start a new thread instead of adding another post to the 454 that exist on the "6 months" thread!

I had both hips replaced several months apart. Going somewhere besides home after the hospital stay was never suggested by me or my physician. The final day of each hospital stay, however, was billed as "rehab". I stayed in the same room, ate the same meals, had PT exercise and OT sessions, etc. The only difference that I noticed between that day and the other three days was that they didn't run in and take my temp and BP every 5 minutes. By that time I was up, walking around (with the walker), wearing regular clothes, eating my meals sitting in a chair, dressing and undressing myself using the various aids and tools, etc.

Looking back, I think it would have been unnecessary for me and in any case, I probably would have hated a rehab center.

I think the decision about the need for spending several days (or weeks) under such care would be influenced by several factors. Among them would be the home situation, whether the person lived alone or had a good social support system, the kind of demands that might be made on the person going directly home such as taking care of other family members, the person's overall health, other comorbidities, characteristics of the housing such as living in a fourth floor with no elevator for example. All this in addition to whatever constraints might be placed by insurance coverage.

Personally, at age 58, with no other health problems and a relatively routine surgery, going directly home 4 days after surgery was not a problem. I am fortunate to have a main floor bedroom, bath, and laundry so the home layout was ideal. Instead of an in-patient rehab stay, my surgeon ordered approx 2 weeks of home visits by a home care nurse and a physical therapist. Each visited about 5 times during a 2-week period. The nurse did whatever blood draws were necessary and removed my staples. After several home visits by the therapist, I was dismissed to go to out-patient PT which I began around week 5. I had prepared my home before the surgeries so that I could be as independent as possible. After the first few days, I was home alone most days and got along fine. My husband took a couple of days off, and checked up on me by phone frequently when he went back to work. I had prepared and frozen meals ahead of time so meal prep was fairly simple. After about a week, I fixed my own breakfast and lunch, and after another week was fixing suppers for both of us (took me forever but I had all the time in the world!) There were no other demands on me as I had hired weekly house cleaning for two months.