Does Medicare Part B Cover Home Health? Rules, Costs, and Duration

Yes, Medicare Part B does cover home health care, and for the covered services you pay nothing. Skilled nursing visits, physical and speech therapy, occupational therapy, home health aide visits tied to skilled care, medical social services, and covered supplies all come at $0 when you qualify. The one out-of-pocket piece is durable medical equipment such as a wheelchair, walker, or hospital bed: those carry the standard 20% coinsurance after you meet the annual Part B deductible, which is $283 in 2026.¹ The catch is in the eligibility rules, which trip up more people than the coverage itself.

Part B or Part A: Why It Doesn’t Change What You Pay

Home health can be billed under either Part A or Part B. Part A picks it up when the care follows a qualifying inpatient hospital stay of at least three consecutive days or a covered skilled nursing facility stay. Without that preceding stay, the care runs through Part B, which is where most home health episodes land because most people start home health without a hospitalization first.

What matters for you: covered home health services cost $0 under both parts, and the eligibility rules are identical.² The split is an accounting matter between Medicare and the home health agency.

The Four Eligibility Requirements

All four of the following must be true. Miss one and Medicare won’t cover the care.³

You are homebound, meaning leaving home takes considerable effort because of illness or injury, whether that involves a walker, wheelchair, special transportation, or help from another person. Leaving must also be medically inadvisable or something you normally can’t do without taxing effort.⁴
You need intermittent skilled nursing care, physical therapy, or speech-language pathology. If you first qualified based on one of those and it resolves, a continuing need for occupational therapy alone can keep you eligible.⁴
A physician or allowed practitioner certifies your need and creates a written plan of care spelling out which services you need, how often, and for how long.
A Medicare-certified home health agency delivers the care. You can find certified agencies through Medicare’s Care Compare tool at medicare.gov/care-compare.

What Homebound Actually Means

Homebound is the requirement most people get wrong. It doesn’t mean you can never leave the house. You can leave for medical appointments, outpatient dialysis, chemotherapy, or treatment at a licensed adult day-care program without losing homebound status.⁵

Non-medical outings are also allowed if they’re infrequent and brief. The CMS Benefit Policy Manual specifically lists attending religious services as a permitted absence, along with trips to the barber, walks around the block, and attendance at a family reunion, funeral, or graduation.⁵ The question Medicare asks is whether your outings suggest you could realistically get your care outside the home instead of having it delivered. Occasional errands are fine; a pattern of regular outings may not be.

The Face-to-Face Encounter

Before certifying you, your physician (or an allowed non-physician practitioner such as a nurse practitioner or physician assistant) must see you in person. Federal rules require this face-to-face encounter no more than 90 days before your home health start date, or within 30 days after care begins.⁶

The certifying physician then writes a brief narrative explaining how your condition supports both your homebound status and your need for skilled services. That narrative must appear on the certification or as a signed addendum, and the home health agency cannot write it for the physician to sign.⁷ Incomplete face-to-face documentation is one of the most common reasons claims get denied, so push your doctor’s office to handle the paperwork promptly.

What Intermittent Skilled Care Means

The word “intermittent” has hard limits. Skilled nursing must be needed fewer than seven days per week, or, if daily, for less than eight hours per day over a period of up to 21 days. Medicare can extend the three-week limit in exceptional cases, but continuous daily nursing beyond that window falls outside the home health benefit.⁸

For skilled nursing and home health aide services combined, “part-time or intermittent” means fewer than eight hours per day and 28 or fewer hours per week.⁸ The benefit is built around periodic skilled interventions, not around-the-clock care.

What Part B Covers at Home

Once you qualify, the following services come at no cost:³

Skilled nursing care from a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse, including wound care, IV or nutrition therapy, injections, medication management, and monitoring of unstable conditions.
Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology in your home to help you regain strength, mobility, daily living skills, or communication ability.
Medical social services to help you navigate emotional concerns, connect with community resources, and coordinate the non-medical side of your care.
Home health aide help with bathing, grooming, dressing, changing bed linens, and feeding, but only while you’re also receiving skilled nursing or therapy. When your skilled care ends, aide services end too.
Disposable medical supplies used as part of your care, such as IV supplies, gauze, and catheters.
Injectable osteoporosis drugs for women with a postmenopausal osteoporosis-related fracture who can’t self-inject and have no family member able to give the injection, plus the nurse visits to administer them.⁹

What Part B Does Not Cover

The gaps in the benefit catch families off guard more than the covered services do.³

24-hour home care. The benefit is intermittent by design.
Meal delivery, including services like Meals on Wheels.
Homemaker tasks such as housekeeping, laundry, or grocery shopping, unless they’re directly tied to your plan of care.
Personal care as your only service. Help with bathing, dressing, or toileting is covered only alongside skilled nursing or therapy. On its own, Medicare treats it as custodial care and won’t pay.

The custodial care exclusion is the gap that affects the most people. Many older adults need help with daily activities but don’t have an underlying condition requiring skilled nursing or therapy, and Medicare wasn’t built to cover long-term personal assistance. Options for that kind of care include long-term care insurance, Medicaid for those who qualify financially, or private payment.

What You Pay

For covered home health services, your cost is $0. No deductible, no coinsurance for the visits, therapy, aide care, social services, or supplies.³

Durable medical equipment provided as part of your care is the exception. Wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds, and similar items follow the standard Part B rules: you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after meeting the $283 Part B deductible for 2026.¹ On a walker Medicare approves at $200, you’d owe $40, assuming the deductible is already met for the year.

How Long Coverage Lasts

Medicare pays your home health agency in 30-day periods, and at the end of each period your physician and the home health team review whether you still meet the criteria.⁸ The formal plan of care is reviewed at least every 60 days, and the physician must recertify your continued need at each 60-day interval.⁴

There is no cap on recertifications. As long as you remain homebound and need skilled care, Medicare will keep covering home health indefinitely. Coverage ends when you no longer meet the eligibility rules, typically when your condition has stabilized enough that skilled nursing or therapy is no longer medically necessary.

If Your Services Are Cut Off

When your agency plans to end your covered services, it must give you a written Notice of Medicare Non-Coverage at least two days before the last covered day. If you don’t receive one, ask.¹⁰

You can request an expedited review by your regional Beneficiary and Family Centered Care Quality Improvement Organization (BFCC-QIO). The deadline is tight: contact the QIO by noon the day before the termination date on your notice. If you make it, the QIO issues a decision by the close of business the day after it gathers the information it needs, and your services may continue while the review is pending. If the QIO agrees your services are ending too soon, Medicare keeps covering the care.¹⁰

Miss the QIO deadline and you can still request a standard reconsideration, but services won’t continue during that review unless the decision comes back in your favor. The noon-the-day-before deadline is the one that matters, so act fast if you disagree.

Medicare Advantage Plans

If you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan rather than Original Medicare, your plan must cover at least the same home health services Original Medicare provides. The plan may require you to use agencies in its network, and some plans require prior authorization. Call your plan before care starts to confirm which agencies are in-network and what approvals are needed. Using an out-of-network agency without permission can leave you responsible for the full cost.

1
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 2026 Medicare Parts A and B Premiums and Deductibles
2
Medicare.gov. Costs
3
Medicare.gov. Home Health Services Coverage
4
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Medicare Benefit Policy Manual Chapter 7 – Home Health Services
5
CMS. Medicare Benefit Policy Manual Transmittal 192
6
eCFR. 42 CFR 424.22 – Requirements for Home Health Services
7
CMS. Medicare Home Health Face-to-Face Requirement
8
Medicare. Medicare and Home Health Care
9
Medicare.gov. Osteoporosis Drugs Coverage
10
Medicare.gov. Fast Appeals