Father-in-law fell and broke his hip

Too many details in the OP makes this difficult to make an informed decision.

Falls are bad news at that age. Two of my grandparents fell around 80 and they both declined pretty quick from there

Prayers sent hoping for the best for him

Keep him moving as best as you can it’ll help a ton. Lying in a bed all day at that age doesn’t go well at all

A broken hip is going to be tough at 86, rehab at some type of nursing facility or rehab at home with round the clock care at home if you can afford it.

He's very active for his age. He's not the type to just lay around

Will need to goto a rehab facility they don’t keep people in the hospital anymore for broken bones.

Threw me for a loop when it happened to my mom, we had to scramble to find somewhere for her to go bc we weren’t going to hire at home care

My mon in June 2020. Had complications from surgery and passed away.

My family went through this in March of 2018 with our Mom. She was 91 when she took a fall at church and broke her hip. She lived in Florida while I, and my siblings, were all in other states.

She was in a hospital and then a rehab hospital for quite some time. Her neighbors were a great support system and visited her often. My siblings and I took turns going down to be with her. She was in very fine facilities, but it's important to have eyes on a patient.

The hardest part of this was having to convince her that she could no longer live alone. We agreed that she should be put in an assisted living facility close to one of my siblings because both of my brothers are MDs and both of my sisters were RNs before they went to law school. I have no medical training.

After some convincing, she agreed to move to the Richmond, VA area in September 2018. Again this was a great facility, but we all visited her often. She made great strides and even took a dance class there. Unfortunately in March 2019 she fell victim to other illnesses. This kept her from ambulating and she eventually died in January 2020 - right before all the COVID happened.

You should make sure you have someone (your spouse and family) understand the red-tape that you'll go through Medicare-wise and have someone available to be with him often (although if he's like Mom, he will complain like hell that he needs to get home) especially to get the physicians' opinions of what needs to be done. You will be amazed at how resilient these old folks can be. I hope that he can make a full recovery and live at his place, but more than likely he will need to be in an assisted living facility.

My best to your FIL in his recovery and to your family in assisting him through it.

This isn’t good. He’ll be hospital and then a rehab hospital. Unfortunately a broken leg is often the end of the line for an older person. Atrophy will set in and being so old it will never build back up, nor will they want to work very hard to get back up. Get his affairs in order while he still has the mental capacity to do so. Sorry.

My FIL fell and broke his hip last year at 85. Is your FIL is pretty good overall shape? My FIL was, fairly skinny, and active. He had partial hip replacement and had to do PT for 2 months, but is mostly his normal self now, just with a slight limp.