What does Medicare Part A cover?

Premium-free for people with 40 work credits (about 10 years of paying Medicare taxes through wages or self-employment). With 30–39 credits, you can buy Part A at a reduced premium. With fewer credits, the full-premium Part A applies.

Even for people who get premium-free Part A, the program still has cost-sharing: a $1,736 deductible per benefit period in 2026, plus daily coinsurance for long stays.

A Part A benefit period starts the day you're admitted to a hospital or SNF and ends 60 consecutive days after you stop receiving inpatient hospital or SNF care. If you're re-admitted within 60 days, the same benefit period continues. If you're re-admitted after 60 days, a new benefit period begins — with a new deductible.

There's no annual cap on how many benefit periods you can have in a year. People with multiple short hospital stays in a single year can hit the deductible multiple times.

No — Part A covers the hospital facility costs after the deductible, but doctor services billed during the stay (surgeon, anesthesiologist, hospitalist) are billed under Part B.

This is why most people on Original Medicare carry both Part A and Part B — a hospital stay involves both. A Medigap supplement or Medicare Advantage plan with a low out-of-pocket cap usually limits your share substantially.

Beyond day 90 in a single benefit period, you start using your 60 lifetime reserve days. Daily coinsurance for lifetime reserve days is $868/day in 2026. Once those 60 lifetime reserve days are gone, they're gone for life — you pay the full cost of any further inpatient care after day 90 in any future benefit period.

A Medigap supplement is the cleanest protection against this risk: standard Medigap plans cover the days 61–90 coinsurance, the lifetime reserve days coinsurance, and an additional 365 days of inpatient care beyond Medicare's coverage.

Part A covers SHORT-TERM SKILLED nursing care — up to 100 days per benefit period after a qualifying 3-day inpatient hospital stay, for people who need rehab, IV antibiotics, wound care, or similar skilled services.

Part A does NOT cover LONG-TERM CUSTODIAL nursing home care — the help-with-bathing, dressing, eating kind of care most people picture. That's typically paid for out-of-pocket, with long-term care insurance, or by Medicaid for those who meet income and asset rules.

Part A SNF: short-term skilled rehab after a hospital stay, capped at 100 days per benefit period. Medicare-funded.

Medicaid long-term care: ongoing custodial care — nursing home or in-home — with no upper time limit, for people who meet state income and asset rules. State-administered, jointly funded by states and the federal government. Medicaid is the largest single payer of long-term care in the U.S.

Yes — $1,736 per benefit period in 2026. Not per year. If you're hospitalized twice in the same year more than 60 days apart, you may pay the deductible twice.

A Medigap supplement or a Medicare Advantage plan typically absorbs most of this cost. Worth running the math if you have a chronic condition that causes recurring hospitalizations.

No — ambulance services are covered under Part B (medical insurance), not Part A. Part B covers ambulance to the nearest appropriate facility when other transportation could endanger your health.

This catches some people off guard — the hospital portion of the bill goes under Part A, the ambulance and the doctor services go under Part B. Both have separate deductibles.

Observation status is when a hospital monitors you to decide whether to admit you as an inpatient. You're in a hospital bed receiving hospital services, but technically you're an outpatient. The bill goes under Part B, not Part A.

The big problem: time spent under observation does NOT count toward the 3-day inpatient hospital stay required for Medicare to cover a follow-up SNF stay. People can spend 5 days in a hospital, get sent to a SNF, and discover Medicare won't cover the SNF because none of those 5 days were 'inpatient.'

If you're on SSDI, Part A starts after 24 months of receiving SSDI cash benefits. ALS waives the 24-month wait — Medicare Parts A and B start the same month as SSDI cash. ESRD has its own Medicare entry rules.

Premium-free Part A still requires that the SSDI beneficiary's work record (or qualifying spouse's) has the work credits. Most SSDI beneficiaries qualify because SSDI itself requires work credits.