Medicare how many days

Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. Now Reading:. Membership My Account. Rewards for Good. Share with facebook. Share with twitter. Share with linkedin. Share using email. This is the Medicare Part A hospital deductible—which, unlike other deductibles, applies to each new benefit period and not just to your first hospital stay of the year.

If you stay in the hospital for all of this time, or are discharged sooner but return during the same benefit period even for a different medical problem , you pay nothing further for this care. If you need to spend more than 60 days in the hospital—whether consecutively or because of readmission—during the same benefit period, you pay a daily copayment for days 61 through Beyond 90 days of inpatient hospital care in the same benefit period, you are responsible for percent of the costs.

This means that for the rest of your life you can draw on any of these 60 days—but no more—to extend Medicare coverage in any benefit period. But if you have any type of Medicare supplemental insurance also known as medigap , your policy covers an additional life-time reserve days, with no copays. Skilled nursing care in traditional Medicare Under the traditional Medicare program, you must spend at least three days in the hospital as an officially admitted patient before Medicare will cover your stay in an approved skilled nursing facility SNF for further needed care such as continuing intravenous injections or physical therapy.

In such a facility, in any one benefit period you pay: Nothing for your bed, board and care for days 1 through All charges beyond days. Leaving AARP. A benefit period begins the day you are admitted to a hospital as an inpatient, or to a SNF, and ends the day you have been out of the hospital or SNF for 60 days in a row. After you meet your deductible , Original Medicare pays in full for days 1 to 60 that you are in a hospital.

For days , you pay a daily coinsurance. If you have used your 90 days of hospital coverage but need to stay longer, Medicare covers up to 60 additional lifetime reserve days , for which you will pay a daily coinsurance. These days are nonrenewable, meaning you will not get them back when you become eligible for another benefit period. You are hospitalized again on January 23 day You were out of the hospital for 15 days. You would not have to pay another Part A deductible because you are still within the benefit period that started on January 1.

The day you are re-hospitalized continues where your previous Medicare benefit period left off. You are now on day 9. You are hospitalized again on March 19 day You were out of the hospital for 70 days. You would have to pay another deductible because you are past the Medicare benefit period that started on January 1. You do not start where your previous Medicare benefit period left off. You are now on day 1. Your Part A deductible covers 60 days of hospital care.

After 60 inpatient hospital days, you will pay more than your Part A deductible. You are admitted to the hospital on February 1 day 1 and are discharged to home on April 11 day Medicare offers you 60 lifetime reserve days to extend your Medicare benefit period. Any hospital stays lasting longer than 91 days will require use of lifetime reserve days.

Medicare only allows you 60 lifetime reserve days total. By definition, these are the only reserve days Medicare will give you in your lifetime. They are not renewed each year.

After you exhaust your lifetime reserve days, you will pay all out of pocket costs. There is one way to accrue additional lifetime reserve days. That is with a Medicare Supplement Plan, also known as Medigap. These plans are not part of the official Medicare program but are standardized by the federal government. Although they do not directly cover medical services, these plans help to pay down expenses that Medicare leaves on the table, e.

All Medigap plans offer you an additional lifetime reserve days. Some policies can also pay all or part of your Part A deductible. You are admitted to the hospital on March 1 day 1 and are discharged on June 8 day You only have 50 lifetime reserve days remaining to use as long as you have Medicare. You also must enter a Medicare-certified skilled nursing facility within 30 days after leaving the hospital.

In order for Medicare to pay for care in a skilled nursing facility SNF , you first have to be hospitalized as an inpatient. That inpatient stay must be at least three days long , not including the day of transfer to the nursing facility.

However, Medicare could still pay for care in a skilled nursing facility if you come from home rather than from a hospital. This is the case if you are within an active Medicare benefit period. By definition, a Medicare benefit begins with an inpatient hospital stay. As long as that stay was at least three days long, you qualify for Medicare-covered placement.

The trick is that you would have to require skilled nursing care daily or skilled therapy services at least five days per week and be placed in the SNF within 30 days of your hospital discharge.