3-day rule can make nursing home stays expensive

Judy Norblade, a retired marketing director, and her husband, Paul, a retired teacher, thought they had all their financial bases covered. They had Medicare, good supplemental coverage from a Medigap policy, a drug plan that paid for most of their prescriptions and long-term-care insurance for a nursing home they hoped they would never need.

“I thought we were pretty well set for healthcare in our retirement years,” she said.

Then the Norblades bumped head on into a notorious Medicare rule that has caught thousands of families off guard over the past eight years and disrupted the sense of heal...