CMS Pub. 100-02, ch. 16, § 110

A3-3159, HO-260.10, HO-261, B3-2326

Custodial care is excluded from coverage. Custodial care serves to assist an individual in

the activities of daily living, such as assistance in walking, getting in and out of bed,

bathing, dressing, feeding, and using the toilet, preparation of special diets, and

supervision of medication that usually can be self-administered. Custodial care

essentially is personal care that does not require the continuing attention of trained

medical or paramedical personnel. In determining whether a person is receiving

custodial care, the A/B MAC (A) or (B) considers the level of care and medical

supervision required and furnished. It does not base the decision on diagnosis, type of

condition, degree of functional limitation, or rehabilitation potential.

Institutional care that is below the level of care covered in a SNF is custodial care. (See

the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Chapter 8, “Coverage of Extended Care (SNF)

Services Under Hospital Insurance,” §30.) Some examples of custodial care in hospitals

and SNFs are:

• A stroke patient who is ambulatory, has no bladder or bowel involvement, no

serious associated or secondary illnesses and does not require medical or

paramedical care but requires only the assistance of an aide in feeding, dressing,

and bathing;

• A cardiac patient who is stable and compensated and has reasonable cardiac

reserve and no associated illnesses, but who because of advanced age has

difficulty in managing alone in the home, and requires assistance in meeting the

activities of daily living; and

• A senile patient who has diabetes which remains stabilized as long as someone

sees to it that the patient takes oral medication and sticks to a prescribed diet.

Even if a patient’s stay in a hospital or SNF is determined to be custodial, some

individual services may still be covered under Part B if they are reasonable and

necessary. For example, periodic visits by a physician to their patient are covered under

Part B if such services are reasonable and necessary to the treatment of the patient’s

illness or injury even though a finding has been made that the care being furnished the

patient in the hospital or SNF is custodial care and, therefore, not covered. Similarly,

such a finding of custodial care does not preclude payment for a Part B claim for

ancillary services, which are medically necessary (see the Medicare Benefit Policy

Manual, Chapter 15, “Covered Medical and Other Health Services,” §250). (See the

Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Chapter 6, “Hospital Services Covered Under Part B,”

§10, and Chapter 8, §80.)