After Crozer: What a Hospital Discharge Looks Like for Families in Upper Darby, Media and Springfield

By Philly Senior Advisor Care Team — Hospital & Veteran Transitions Team · October 8, 2026

The Question Delaware County Families Did Not Used to Have

For decades a family in Upper Darby, Chester, or Springfield who got a frightening call about a parent could assume one thing without thinking about it: the ambulance would go to a hospital a few miles away, and the discharge planner there would already know the local skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and personal care homes. Delaware County hospital discharge planning is now a more scattered business. With Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland having closed in 2025, a parent from the county is more likely to land at Riddle Hospital in Media, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, or one of the large Philadelphia systems, and the people who write the discharge plan may know the family's town only from a street address on a face sheet.

That does not make the care worse, but it shifts work onto the family. A discharge planner at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania or Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is skilled at placement, yet the facility list they hand you may lean toward Philadelphia buildings an hour from a daughter in Springfield. The first job for a Delaware County family is simply to say out loud, on day one, which towns are realistic for visiting, and to ask that the search be built around them rather than around the hospital's usual referral habits.

Three Towns, Three Very Different Markets

Upper Darby, Media, and Springfield sit within a short drive of each other on a map, but they behave like different senior-care markets. Upper Darby is dense, transit-rich, and full of rowhouses and twins where a parent may have lived for fifty years; SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line and trolley routes make it possible for a family without a car to visit a parent in a nearby facility, which is a real advantage when the alternative is a Philadelphia placement. Media is the county seat, smaller and more suburban, with a walkable downtown and easy access to the county's government offices. Springfield is a car-dependent suburb where the nearest facility and the nearest relative may be separated by a drive on Baltimore Pike.

Pricing follows the same pattern. Across Greater Philadelphia in 2026, assisted living commonly runs about $4,800 to $6,900 a month and memory care about $6,200 to $8,600, with nursing home care around $11,000 to $14,000. Delaware County tends to sit at the lower end of those ranges compared with the Main Line and Chester County, though a newer building in Media can price well above an older one in Upper Darby. Treat those figures as a frame for asking questions, not a quote; the monthly base rate is often only the starting point once a level-of-care assessment is added.

The Discharge Meeting, Step by Step

Under Medicare rules a hospital must have a discharge planning process, and a patient or representative may ask for it to begin early rather than on the morning of discharge. In practice, ask for a meeting with the case manager within the first day or two of an admission that looks serious. Bring a short written list: the parent's medications, the primary care physician, the preferred pharmacy, whether the parent has a health care power of attorney, and any benefits already in place such as Medicare Advantage, a Medicaid card, or veteran status. If the hospital proposes short-term rehabilitation, ask which skilled nursing facilities have openings, which are close to you, and what each one's recent inspection history looks like.

Two details trip families up in this county. First, a stay classified as outpatient observation rather than inpatient admission can affect whether Medicare covers a later skilled nursing stay, so ask directly how the stay is being classified. Second, if you disagree with a discharge date, you generally have the right to request a review through the Medicare quality improvement organization; the hospital must give you the notice explaining how. None of this requires hostility toward the staff. It simply means asking the right question before the transport van is scheduled.

Where the County's Own Agency Fits In

Delaware County has its own Area Agency on Aging, the Office of Services for the Aging, usually called COSA, and it is a different front door from Philadelphia Corporation for Aging even though the two counties touch. A parent who lives in Upper Darby is served by COSA, not by PCA, and a discharge planner who is used to Philadelphia referrals may not think to make that call for you. COSA can assess a person for the Pennsylvania Department of Aging's OPTIONS Program, which funds care management and in-home services on a sliding fee scale, and it can point toward Community HealthChoices when a parent's finances and care needs may qualify for Medicaid long-term services and supports.

Keep the programs distinct in your own notes. OPTIONS is Lottery-funded and is not Medicaid. Community HealthChoices is the Medicaid managed-care program run through the Department of Human Services, and it can pay for personal care at home or in a licensed home but not for room and board. LIFE, Pennsylvania's version of the national PACE model, is a third option for people who qualify and live in its service area. Asking COSA to walk through all three, rather than only the one the hospital mentioned, often changes the plan.

Checking the Facility Before You Say Yes

Whatever the discharge planner recommends, verify it yourself. Skilled nursing facilities are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and rated through Medicare Care Compare, so look at the inspection findings and staffing numbers before accepting a bed. Personal care homes and assisted living residences are licensed by the Department of Human Services, and their inspection reports can be searched through the state's facility locator. Pennsylvania has no separate memory care license, so a home advertising memory care should be asked which licensed category it operates under and how it meets dementia-care disclosure requirements.

If a parent is a veteran, add one more call. The Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia can screen for benefits such as Aid and Attendance, and Southeastern Veterans' Center in Spring City is a state veterans' home worth asking about even though it is a drive from Delaware County. Families who learn about these options after a placement is signed often discover they could have saved thousands of dollars a year by asking a week earlier.

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