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This web page talks about CA Medicare skilled care advice. Skilled nursing care is medical care administered under a doctor's orders. This form of care may only be administered by or under the supervision of skilled medical care professionals. Care that can be provided by non-professionals is not skilled nursing care. Rehabilitative care which requires skilled professional staff is also considered a type of skilled care. Medicare can help pay for skilled nursing care. A person receives skilled nursing care to help improve their health condition or to attempt to keep their health condition from deteriorating. In California Medicare and Medicare supplements only cover skilled nursing care under certain conditions. A person must have days left in the current benefit period. That person must have also had a qualifying hospital stay. In order to qualify the hospital stay had to have been for a minimum of 3 consecutive days from the time they were admitted and this doesn't include the day they were discharged. A person must also enter the skilled nursing facility within 30 days of when they had been discharged from the hospital. If you leave the skilled nursing facility and then have to reenter it with 30 days you don't have to have another three day hospital stay in order to qualify. Medicare must have approved the skilled nursing facility. The condition for which a person needs skilled care must have been the same one that had been during the qualifying three day hospital stay. A doctor must have ordered the care. Medicare breaks down time periods that it will cover skilled nursing care expenses into what are referred to as benefit periods. The benefit period starts on the first day an individual starts Medicare Part A hospital or skilled nursing facility benefits. There are one hundred covered days in a benefit period. Once these days are used up there are no more benefits available for the current benefit period. The benefit period ends when a person has not been in a skilled nursing facility or hospital for at least 60 consecutive days or if a person has been in a skilled nursing facility for at least 60 consecutive days without actually having received skilled care there. There are no limits as to the number of benefit periods a person may have over their lifetime. Some of the costs associated with skilled nursing facilities are dietary counseling, ambulance transportation, medical supplies, semi-private room, occupational therapy, skilled nursing care, medical social services, speech therapy, physical therapy, meals and medicine. These services must be necessary in order for Medicare to cover them. Medicare will pay for the full cost of the first 20 days of skilled nursing care. The next 80 days require an individual to pay a daily co-payment with Medicare paying the balance. Medicare pays nothing for skilled nursing care care costs after the first one hundred days. Some Medicare Supplements help cover the daily co-payment. With more than twenty years experience helping Californians with their Medicare Supplement requirements we can help you as well. Let us analyze your requirements, and assist you with getting coverage. Medicare is a extremely complex topic. There is a huge amount of information out there about Medicare. Finding the information you want can be time consuming and tedious. Let us give you the information you need. |