Medicare Part A
Part A of Medicare is your hospital insurance. This helps you cover common hospital expenses for things such as the cost of a semi-private room for stays, hospice, home health care and even skilled nursing facility stays. This part of Medicare also covers blood transfusions requiring more than 3 pints of blood.
Part A is also at no cost for most people as long as they have worked at least 10 years in the U.S. or are married to someone who is at least 62 and has worked those quarters.
We often tell our clients to think of Part A as your room and board in the hospital. This part of Medicare provides you a semi-private room for your hospital stay and with meals and medical services while you are in the hospital.
Sometimes particularly healthy people wonder if they may need only Part A. Perhaps they don’t use many medical services yet and so they wonder if they can get away with Part A alone.
However, there are many things that happen in a hospital that fall under another part of Medicare – Part B, so it’s important that you enroll in both A & B unless you have other coverage coordinating with Medicare.