Skilled nursing question; Do I have a choice where Mom will be placed?

Yes, you absolutely do have a choice in the placement. Do your research, make a checklist of what's important to do (especially staff to patient ratios), arrange for a tour and check out everything you can. Look for a place with a shower in the room as opposed to a central shower. Check out the rehab gym. Check out the food (going around mealtime helps).

Do your own homework; don't rely on the choice made by the discharge planner; the first time we did that, Mom had problems and we had to have her doctor intervene.

After the week on antibiotics, where will Mom live?

Naturally you'd like the best place available, and you can list the places you prefer, but if those places don't have an opening, I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a place that does. At least it is just a week!

It's been a crazy couple of years for me, but I do somewhat recall the hospital showing me a list of places where Mom could be sent for her short-term care and I could list 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc. This was in 2016 when she went to a rehab nursing home the first time. I went geographically down the list (so she would be close to my home) and skipped over any place which I wasn't familiar with or felt negatively about. The 2nd time I went through this, I told the hosp that I wanted her in the same place as before & they got that done for me - but i'm sure part of it was purely the fact that the place had a bed available as opposed to me truly having the right to demand a certain place. I'd make it known what you want/ need. Let social worker know where you live & you'd like Mom closer to you. Let social worker know if there's a place nearby that you view as poor quality. I suppose you can always say no if you really don't like the place they try to give you, but at some point Mom does need to leave the hospital & needs to go somewhere. I'm not sure what would ultimately happen if you continued to refuse place after place. If it gets desperate & looks like mom will be going somewhere that you don't want her to go, I would not hesitate to pick up the phone and call a better place to see if they are truly full or what's going on that there isn't a bed for your mom.