Part A (Inpatient hospital): The Complete Guide to Nevada

For most Nevada residents, the monthly premium for Part A is free as long as you or your spouse worked and paid Medicare taxes for at least 10 years (40 quarters). However, 'premium-free' does not mean your hospital care is entirely free; you are still responsible for a substantial deductible per benefit period, as well as potential daily coinsurance if your hospital stay lasts longer than 60 days.

Emergency room services are generally covered by Medicare Part B, not Part A. Part A only covers your hospital care if you are officially admitted to the hospital as an inpatient under a doctor's order. If you receive care in the ER and are sent home, or if you are kept overnight under 'observation status' without being formally admitted, Part B covers the costs.

Part A covers up to 100 days in a skilled nursing facility per benefit period, but only if you have had a qualifying inpatient hospital stay of at least three consecutive days immediately prior. Days 1 through 20 are covered in full. For days 21 through 100, you must pay a daily coinsurance amount. After day 100, Part A pays nothing.

If you are actively working and covered by an employer's health plan (with 20 or more employees), you do not strictly have to enroll in Part A right at 65. However, since it is premium-free for most, many choose to enroll anyway to serve as secondary hospital insurance. Importantly, if you have a High Deductible Health Plan and want to continue contributing to a Health Savings Account (HSA), you must delay enrolling in Part A, as any Medicare enrollment disqualifies you from making new HSA contributions.

A benefit period is the way Original Medicare measures your use of inpatient hospital and skilled nursing facility services. It begins the day you are admitted as an inpatient and ends when you have not received any inpatient hospital care or skilled care in a SNF for 60 consecutive days. You must pay the Part A deductible for each new benefit period, meaning you could pay it multiple times in a single year if you have multiple, spaced-out hospitalizations.