No Matter What You Call It, It's Still a Nursing Home

Last week after refusing Assisted Living once more, my father fell again--the third time in four days.  This time EMS took him to the hospital.  Once there, they found that my dad was dehydrated, had a severe urinary tract infection (which can cause confusion and disorientation in the elderly) and had a condition where his blood pressure drops when he stands up.  His face was bruised and there were skin tears up and down both arms.
Fortunately, antibiotics cleared up the UTI, but the fall and infection weakened him considerably. 
Now we changed our focus from Assisted Living to a Sub-Acute or Rehab facility.  My sister and I choose two that were acceptable to us.  Neither had beds available.  
On Saturday, the social worker told us that there was a bed available in a place called Autumn Woods.  We checked it out and saw a place in serious need of paint and with people sleeping in wheelchairs in the lobby. 
Later that afternoon the social worker came by again and said we had to move him or Medicare would not pay for the hospital stay. We began to get anxious.  In their minds once a bed was available, you had to take it. Needless to say, we had a restless night.
The next morning another social worker came in.  Again we were told we had to take the available bed.  Once again I refused.  I told her in what I hoped was an assertive, but not aggressive way that we other places to look at and were doing so that very afternoon.  During all this my father is getting more and more agitated and scared, worried that he was being sent away without any say in the matter.
Later, the social worker came back and wanted me to sign a paper saying that we had been told that we could appeal the discharge and refused to do so.
Wait......what?
Appeal?  No one had said anything about an appeal.  
What we didn't know as elder-care virgins is that Medicare has an appeal process in place. Once you call and ask for the discharge to be appealed, the case is reviewed by a nurse and a doctor.  But what this really does is give you 2 to 3 extra days to look for an acceptable facility. 
Good to know.  I'm sorry we had two sleepless nights over this, but now we know and can begin a new search tomorrow.  
We're keeping our fingers crossed.