This happened at the University of New Mexico Hospital in 2019 to my friend Philip who had terminal colon cancer. it's been so long now that I don't remember if it was the maximum days that the hospital said a person could stay or if it was his insurance that wouldn't pay past a certain number of days. At any rate, he called me and said they were making him leave. Another friend rented a room in a motel that rented by the week or month. She was able to get a fold-up bed in the room for herself and stayed with him. It had a kitchenette too. She was a full-time teacher and also a long-time friend of Philip. After two months she was able to get him into a "retirement village" with hospice. It was a small room with a cot for her and a mini refrigerator. This is a complex story that doesn't end here but I wanted you to know that this story is not unique. This kind of thing is and has been happening for a long time.
It happened to my husband too, although it wasn't that they kicked him out, it was that they insisted on "releasing" him, that "he would be okay." Well EMS returned him to the hospital one hour after he had been released. The EMS attendant said Bill should have never been released in the first place. And when a person from the finance department came to his room to collect the admission fee, I nearly exploded. But very firmly and assertively I said, "I'm not paying it." She smiled, nodded her head and left the room. They never billed me. A lawyer said there wasn't enough money in a possible lawsuit for him to take the case. Sometimes it's best to just accept that the world is not perfect and move on. I didn't want to spend the next five years going in and out of court either, for justice that would end up taking a chunk out of my own life. So the hospital got away with it, so to speak.
It's obvious that our healthcare "system" is not about health, but it is about money and politics. Too bad for us poorer patients. Our Congress opposes Medicare for all, and we are, derogatorily, labeled "Socialists," when all we want is to be treated humanely and according to our need.