Federal law requires an inpatient hospital stay for three consecutive days before Medicare will cover a patient’s care in a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF). However, this 3-day qualifying hospital stay requirement has become antiquated and onerous for patients and providers as the landscape of care has changed in the nearly 60 years since Medicare was enacted.

The 3-day qualifying hospital stay requirement was waived in 2020 during the pandemic, and beneficiaries who otherwise qualified for SNF care received it—regardless of spending any amount of time in the hospital.

With the public health emergency set to end on May 11, now is the time to take legislative action to permanently fix this unnecessary requirement.