Qualifying for Medicare Part A

Medicare Part A

All my Medicare conversations over the next couple days are going to assume that you are average joe/jane and you turned 65

Medicare Part A Covers Inpatient Hospital Care, Skilled Nursing facility care and long-term care hospitals.

Most people will enter the hospital under observation status for the first 23 hours, so Part A would not cover this. The ER (Emergency Room) is considered an outpatient service.  You could go from the ER to a room for observation, which means you are still not an inpatient.

Some surgeries and services automatically make you inpatient – such as a hip replacement or a coronary bypass.

A cardiac catheter procedure is not an inpatient procedure.

Part A is Free. What this means is that when you are eligible to get Part A you don’t have to make a payment to Medicare to have this coverage.

You are eligible IF – you are 65 and IF you or your spouse paid into social security even if you are not drawing that benefit.

However, in order to be eligible to get Part A “Free” you need to have paid into Medicare via taxes for 40 quarters. (120 months or 10 years)

This is free like a harbor freight free flashlight.

There are two Part A premiums if you have not paid enough quarters to be eligible.

From 0 to 30 Quarters your monthly payment would be (for Part A only) $437

From 31 to 39 quarters your monthly payment would be (for Part A only) $240 a month

In order to make the monthly premium payments you would need to also have Medicare Part B and pay premiums for both.

All this information is available at www.medicare.gov

Next we will talk briefly about Medicare Part B