Nature of Business	9 Months Ended
Nature of Business	Sep. 30, 2011
Notes to Financial Statements [Abstract]
Nature of Business	(1) Nature of Business References throughout this document to the Company include Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. and our consolidated subsidiaries. In accordance with the Securities and Exchange Commission's "Plain English" guidelines, this report has been written in the first person. In this document, the words "we," "our" and "us" refer to Sun Healthcare Group, Inc. and its direct and indirect consolidated subsidiaries and not any other person. Business Our subsidiaries provide long-term, post-acute and related specialty healthcare in the United States. We operate through three principal business segments: (i) inpatient services, (ii) rehabilitation therapy services, and (iii) medical staffing services. Inpatient services represent the most significant portion of our business. We operated 199 healthcare centers in 25 states as of September 30, 2011. Restructuring Costs On July 29, 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS") released its final rule for skilled nursing facilities for the 2012 federal fiscal year, which became effective on October 1, 2011 (the "CMS Final Rule"). After the application of the market basket increase of 2.7%, the productivity adjustment of -1.0% and the parity adjustment of -12.6%, the prospective net decrease in Medicare reimbursement rates is 11.1%. Additionally, the CMS Final Rule changed group therapy reimbursement and introduced new change-of-therapy provisions as patients move through their post-acute stay that will further reduce our revenues from the Medicare program and/or increase our costs of providing such services. As a result of the expected negative impact of the CMS Final Rule on our business, we commenced a broad-based mitigation initiative, which includes infrastructure cost reductions without affecting the quality of our patient care. During our third quarter ended September 30, 2011, we incurred $2.4 million of restructuring costs in connection with our mitigation initiative, which consisted primarily of severance benefits resulting from reductions of staff. We will continue to focus on reducing costs to further mitigate the impact on our business of the reduced Medicare reimbursement rates. Other Information The accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with our customary accounting practices and accounting principles generally accepted in the United States ("GAAP") for interim financial statements. In our opinion, the accompanying interim consolidated financial statements are a fair statement of our financial position at September 30, 2011, and our consolidated results of operations and cash flows for the three-month and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively. These statements are unaudited, and certain information and footnote disclosures normally included in our annual consolidated financial statements have been condensed or omitted, as permitted under the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements reflect all adjustments, consisting of only normal recurring items. Readers of these statements should refer to our audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto for the year ended December 31, 2010, which are included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010 (the "2010 Form 10-K"). The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, the disclosure of significant contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Significant estimates include determination of impairment for goodwill and other long-lived assets, third-party payor settlements, allowances for doubtful accounts, self-insurance obligations, loss accruals and income taxes. Actual results could differ from those estimates. Recent Accounting Pronouncements The Emerging Issues Task Force of the FASB issued an Accounting Standards Update in August 2010 regarding the balance sheet presentation of medical malpractice claims and similar contingent liabilities and related insurance recoveries. The updated guidance requires the insurance recovery receivable to be presented as a gross asset instead of netting it against the related liability. The updated presentation was effective for us on January 1, 2011, is reflected in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet and has resulted in the reclassification of anticipated insurance recoverables to assets as of January 1, 2011 of $2.1 million and $28.1 million for general and professional liabilities and workers' compensation liabilities, respectively. There was no impact on our accumulated deficit due to adoption of this new standard. See the Insurance portion of Note 6 - "Commitments and Contingencies" for additional information. The FASB issued an Accounting Standards Update in June 2011 regarding the presentation of comprehensive income within financial statements. GAAP now requires that comprehensive income and its components of net income and other comprehensive income be presented in either (1) a single continuous statement of comprehensive income or (2) two separate but consecutive statements. This new guidance will be effective for us beginning with our March 31, 2012 interim reporting with retrospective presentation. The FASB issued an Accounting Standards Update in September 2011 regarding the testing of goodwill for impairment. The update permits the assessment of qualitative factors, to determine whether it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, as a basis for determining whether it is necessary to perform the two-step goodwill impairment test. This new guidance is effective for periods beginning after December 15, 2011. Early adoption is permitted. Reclassifications Certain reclassifications have been made to the prior period financial statements to conform to the 2011 financial statement presentation. We have reclassified the results of operations of the nurse practitioner services group and one skilled nursing center of our Inpatient Services segment (see Note 5 - "Discontinued Operations") for all periods presented to discontinued operations within the income statement, in accordance with GAAP.