After Hip Replacement: Maximize Your Medicare Benefits
Most patients need physical therapy after hip replacement surgery. If you are one of them, it’s vital to know where to get the best physical rehabilitation care and how to maximize your Medicare benefits.
After a major joint replacement surgery, you usually aren’t ready to go directly home. Typically, your doctor will prescribe inpatient physical rehabilitation at a skilled nursing community.
That’s fine, but who’s going to pay for it?
Will Medicare?
You may panic a little, afraid you’ll have to pay for it all out-of-pocket.
Don’t stress. We’ve got the answers you need.
The key to getting the coverage necessary is maximizing your Medicare benefits.
How Much Does Medicare Pay for Nursing Homes?
When someone comes to us and uses Medicare benefits, they need a three-night qualifying stay in the hospital before being admitted to us.
This hospital stay can be within the last 30 days prior to admission.
It’s important to note that this does not just mean three nights in a hospital—they have to have been officially admitted.
When using Medicare is a skilled nursing facility (SNF), days 1-20 are paid for by Medicare 100%.
For days 21-100 there is a 20% co-pay that Medicare determines and this changes each January.
This can be paid for privately or with a secondary insurance.
5 Ways to Maximize Your Medicare Benefit
Of course, maximizing your benefit means much more than understanding what Medicare pays.
There’s much more to Medicare than you may realize.
Here are some important points to remember:
Be Sure to Sign Up On Time
Stay with us.
This can be confusing.
You can get Medicare at age 65. You can sign up within the three months before your 65th birthday, your birthday month, or the three months that follow.
That’s seven months.
You can also enroll during the general enrollment period.
But if you fail to enroll, you could pay the price. Medicare Part B premiums can go up by 10 percent for every year that you were Medicare-eligible but didn’t enroll.
Decide on Your Medication Needs
You can’t understand what you need if you don’t have an idea of what medicine you take.
How many prescriptions do you take? Which Medicare plan offers the best coverage for them?
You’ll have to evaluate your benefits and out-of-pocket costs for the different Medicare plans.
Take Advantage of Free Screenings
You know that early cancer detection is key to becoming a survivor. But did you know that Medicare offers a lot of preventative care and screenings typically at no extra cost?
Granted, some of these may require a doctor’s order, but screenings can include:
- Bone density screenings
- Heart disease screenings
- Cervical and vaginal cancer screenings
- Diabetes screenings
- Prostate cancer screenings
- Mammograms
Maximize Your Wellness Benefits
The key to staying healthy is to take advantage of your annual wellness visit.
You may be surprised to find that your Medicare plan may offer perks such as exercise programs, telehealth services and annual physicals.
Be Sure to Ask Questions!
As we mentioned, it can be confusing. There are often a lot of changes from year to year.
Before taking advantage of any service, we encourage you to get in touch with your Medicare representative to find out the extent of your benefits.
Bladen East: A Perfect Location for Your Physical Therapy
We’re more than just a community. We embrace all of our residents with compassionate care that makes us feel like a family.
Want to learn more? Just contact us and we’ll be glad to provide information on what makes our community so special. Hurry—spaces fill quickly.