Medicare will provide for medically necessary home health services at no cost to you if the following conditions are met.

• You are an eligible Medicare beneficiary
• You are confined to the home
• You are under the care of a physician.
• You need intermittent, part-time skilled medical services.
• Your physician approves the plan of care

The term “confined to home” is frequently misunderstood. The term does not mean a person is bedridden or totally incapable of leaving the home. The patient may leave the home and still be considered “confined to home”. Below is a brief summary of the official Medicare definition of “confined to home”:

• Patient may be able to leave home, but doing so requires a “considerable and taxing effort”
• Absences from home would be infrequent and relatively short duration, or due to need to received health care treatment
• Regular absences for the purpose of participating in therapeutic, psychosocial, or medical treatment in a licensed or state certified adult day care program permitted
• Attending a religious service, an occasional trip to the barber, a walk around the block or a drive, attendance at a family reunion, funeral, graduation, or other infrequent or unique event would not necessitate a finding that the patient is not homebound if the absences are undertaken on an infrequent basis or are of relatively short duration and do not indicate that the patient has the capacity to obtain the health care provided outside rather than in the home.
• Click on the link below to see the full definition of “confined to home” from the Medicare Policy Benefit Manual

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