Licensed for 194 beds under HCAI ID 206370719, Balboa Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is the Medicare- and Medicaid-certified skilled nursing facility at 3520 Fourth Avenue, operated under PACS on the Hillcrest medical corridor. Short-term post-acute rehab admissions arrive directly from Scripps Mercy seven blocks south and from the UC San Diego Health Hillcrest Emergency Department next door, where discharge planners coordinate transfer paperwork before the ambulance moves the patient. A licensed nursing team is on the floor around the clock, supported by physical, occupational, and speech therapists working out of an on-site rehab gym sized for parallel-bar gait training and standing-frame transfers. Long-term residents who outgrow the lighter custodial level offered at independent communities such as Merrill Gardens at Bankers Hill transition to Balboa once 24-hour licensed nursing becomes medically necessary. Insurance acceptance covers Medicare, Medicaid, most PPOs, and a wide HMO panel, with in-house insurance specialists translating plan benefits into expected length-of-stay and copay structures before admission. The facility's most demanding caseload involves long stays for residents with combined dementia and complex polypharmacy, where the interdisciplinary team coordinates psychiatric medication titration, fall-prevention engineering, and family conferences over months rather than weeks.