Key takeaways

  • Medicare Part A covers up to 90 days of inpatient care for each benefit period. This includes time in a hospital and inpatient rehab facility.
  • A benefit period begins when you are admitted to a hospital and ends when you have not received any inpatient care for 60 days.
  • While you are in an inpatient rehab facility, Medicare covers all rehabilitation services, meals, nursing care, and more.

Inpatient rehabilitation can help when you are recovering from illness, injury, or serious surgery and require an intensive therapy program. It also provides coordinated care from doctors and therapists, as well as physician supervision.

Your doctor must certify that you have a condition that requires continued medical supervision, intensive rehab, and coordinated care in order for Medicare to cover inpatient rehabilitation.

For each benefit period, Medicare Part A covers up to 90 days of inpatient care. This can include time you spend in a hospital, as well as time in an inpatient rehab facility.

A benefit period begins when you are admitted to a hospital and ends when you have not received any inpatient care for 60 days. If you are admitted again after a benefit period ends, then a new benefit period begins.

After 90 days of inpatient care, you can use your reserve days and continue to receive Medicare coverage. Reserve days are additional days of inpatient coverage. Each person is given 60 reserve days in their lifetime.

During your time in an inpatient rehab facility, Medicare covers:

  • all rehabilitation services, including:
    • physical therapy
    • occupational therapy
    • speech therapy
  • meals
  • nursing care
  • a semiprivate room
  • prescription drugs
  • other hospital services and supplies

For each inpatient benefit period, you are responsible for paying the following amounts:

  • Days 1 to 60: $1,676 deductible
  • Days 61 to 90: $419 per day
  • Days 91 and beyond: $838 per day while using lifetime reserve days
  • After day 150: all costs

A note on deductibles

You do not have to pay a deductible for inpatient rehabilitation if Medicare already charged you a deductible for the care you received in a hospital within the same benefit period.

This is because the benefit period begins on the first day of a hospital stay, and that stay counts toward the deductible.

This means you will not pay a deductible for inpatient rehabilitation if:

  • You are transferred to an inpatient rehab facility directly from the hospital.
  • You are admitted to an inpatient rehab facility within 60 days of being discharged from a hospital.