Will medicare part A pay for some of my husband's dialysis?
My husband is on medicare part A and I have insurance through work. He recently started dialysis and has had a lot of complications. My insurance is not paying all of the dialysis bills. Will medicare part A pick up the rest of the bills?
Expert Answer
If your insurance through work covers some of the dialysis cost but not all, Medicare can pick up most of the rest of the cost depending on how your husband receives the dialysis and which parts of Medicare he's enrolled in.
Medicare Part A is the part of Medicare that covers inpatient hospital, rehabilitation and nursing facility care -- meaning the cost of care in one of these facilities when a patient is admitted to the facility and spends the night there. If and when your husband receives dialysis while an inpatient, Medicare Part A can cover it. If, however, he receives dialysis as an outpatient -- either at a hospital, a dialysis or other outpatient clinic, or at home -- then it would be covered by Medicare Part B (assuming that he's enrolled in Part B).
To learn more about how Medicare covers dialysis, and how Medicare coverage interacts with private, employer-sponsored insurance, look at the official Medicare brochure called Medicare Coverage of Kidney Dialysis.