| MediCARE and nursing home costs…read on:
CLIENT QUESTION:
If Medicare will pay for the first 20 days of rehab, will long-term care insurance pay for the next 80 days if necessary?
MY RESPONSE:
Following a three-day hospital stay, Medicare will pay for the first 20 days of rehab in a nursing home…FULLY. Thereafter, Medicare will pay for the next 80 days of rehab, except for a $204 per day co-insurance payment. If you have a Medigap policy or Advantage plan, you will be insured for the $204 per day as well. If you have a long-term care insurance policy, you will use the policy on the first day that you are not covered by Medicare, Medigap, or the Advantage plan.
Having said the above, remember two more things. First, you are not guaranteed that Medicare will pay up to 100 days. As soon as you are no longer benefiting from rehab they will cut you off. That could be on day 5, 25, 55 or 85!
Secondly, your long-term care insurance policy may have an elimination period where it will not kick in until a certain amount of days. A typical policy will not pay until you are in the nursing home for 90-100 days. Check your policy! |
