A Medicare benefit period is a way Original Medicare measures your use of inpatient hospital and skilled nursing facility (SNF) services. It begins when you are admitted as an inpatient to a hospital or SNF and ends when you haven’t received any inpatient care for 60 consecutive days. Each new benefit period requires you to pay the Part A deductible again. 

Cost Sharing

Within a benefit period, you may have to pay coinsurance or copayments for certain services, depending on the length of your stay and whether you’ve used lifetime reserve days. 

Lifetime Reserve Days

If you need inpatient hospital care beyond 90 days in a single benefit period, you can use up to 60 lifetime reserve days, but these are not renewable. 

Once you use up these 60 lifetime reserve days, you are responsible for all cost associated with your inpatient care for that benefit period.