Often Medicaid-if you're poor or makeyourself poor. Infrequently, residents or their families. For most, long stays just aren't affordable. Contrary to what many beneficiaries believe, it pays only for relatively short nursing-home stays directly related to an illness or injury that requires hospitalization. Medicare pays for a maximum of 100 days of skilled-nursing care during each benefit period.
Skilled care includes specific medical services.
Medicare does not pay for custodial care, the kind of care many infirm people need to bathe, dress, eat and go to the toilet if that's the only type of care they require. For a patient who enters a nursing home directly from a hospital and who needs skilled-nursing care, Medicare covers the costs for the first 20 days. That amount changes each year. To cover that gap and others in Medicare, elderly people should consider buying Medicare-supplement insurance upon turning 65. It's not easy to qualify for skilled-nursing benefits.