Supplemental, 2026
10%
Some Medicare Advantage plans include help at home, but most people with a plan aren’t offered it. Read your own booklet, and we will read it with you if you bring it.
10 percent of enrollees, individual plans, KFF 2026
Medicare Advantage Home Care Benefits in 2026
Most people with a Medicare Advantage plan aren't offered help at home through it: in 2026, KFF reports that in-home support services are offered as a supplemental benefit to only 10 percent of enrollees in individual Medicare Advantage plans and 38 percent of enrollees in Special Needs Plans. Check your own plan's benefits list before counting on it, and Endurance Home Care can talk through the rest with you.
Does my plan include help at home?
Medicare Advantage plans may offer in-home support services as a supplemental benefit. It’s optional, unlike the medical benefits every plan has to carry, so whether yours includes it depends on the plan. KFF’s 2026 figures split by plan type, so find your own row below.
An individual Medicare Advantage plan
10%
of enrollees offered in-home support
This is the row most readers are standing in, and the benefit is less likely to be included. The figure comes from KFF's 2026 analysis.
A Special Needs Plan
38%
of enrollees offered in-home support
The benefit is more often offered in a Special Needs Plan, though it still isn't a given. Special Needs Plans concentrate the benefit, which is why the plan type matters more here than the carrier name does.
Either way, the answer is in your plan’s own benefits list. Our guide sets this benefit beside the other ways of paying and explains how families actually pay for home care.
Original Medicare doesn’t pay for ongoing daily help at home either.
The home health benefit doesn’t pay for 24-hour-a-day care at home, and it doesn’t pay for custodial personal care when that’s the only care a person needs. Those are the baseline rules, and supplemental in-home support, where a plan offers it, is an extra on top of them.
For what the benefit does cover, and when, see Medicare’s home health coverage rules.
How to check your own plan
Every plan publishes an evidence of coverage document and a list of supplemental benefits, and that list is what settles it. Look for the phrase in-home support services. Then call the number on the back of the card and ask whether the benefit is included for this plan year, how many hours it allows, and which agencies it can be used with. It’s worth asking for the answer in writing. These common assumptions can send you to the wrong page, so set them aside first.
Supplemental, 2026
- Every Medicare Advantage plan includes home care
- An individual plan and a Special Needs Plan work the same way
- The plan's marketing page is the benefit list
- A benefit that exists is a benefit with hours attached
- In-home support services, printed in your own supplemental benefits list
Paying for the rest of the week
Even where a plan includes in-home support, plan on it covering part of the help rather than all of it. Medicare and most health insurance, including Medigap, don’t pay for long-term daily help at home, though long-term care insurance may. So families often pair whatever hours a plan allows with private pay or a policy for the rest of the week.
If there’s a long-term care policy, it’s worth reading alongside the plan booklet, because it’s the one that tends to cover more hours. Start with long term care insurance and home care.
Where Endurance Home Care fits
The plan
Decides whether a supplemental benefit exists for your plan year and what it allows. The plan answers that question, and it’s best to have the answer in writing.
Our care
Endurance Home Care holds Connecticut License HCA.0002450 as a Homemaker Companion Agency. Our caregivers help with daily life at home: company, meals, the house, errands and, where it’s needed, hands-on personal care. Endurance is private pay and doesn’t bill insurance directly, including Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans. If there’s a long-term care insurance policy, you can use it, and we’ll help with the policy paperwork.
Bring the booklet to the call and we’ll read the supplemental benefits list with you, then tell you which hours it looks like it will carry and which it won’t. We’ll also talk through the help your family needs and what care would cost. Here’s more on what home care costs and how families pay.
Connecticut License HCA.0002450 · New Jersey License HP0435100 · Connecticut DPH License 9915786 (Endurance Home Health)
Questions families ask
What are medicare advantage home care benefits?
Some Medicare Advantage plans offer in-home support services as a supplemental benefit, but KFF's 2026 analysis found they're offered to only 10 percent of enrollees in individual plans and 38 percent in Special Needs Plans. Original Medicare doesn't pay for 24-hour-a-day or custodial-only care at home, so check your plan's supplemental benefits list before counting on coverage, and plan for private pay or long-term care insurance to cover most of the daily help.
Do all Medicare Advantage plans cover home care?
No. KFF's 2026 analysis shows the in-home support benefit is concentrated in Special Needs Plans, where 38 percent of enrollees are offered it, against 10 percent in individual plans. Coverage depends on the plan, so read your plan's supplemental benefits list or ask the plan directly before counting on help at home.
Does Medicare Advantage cover 24-hour home care?
No plan type changes Medicare's baseline rules: the home health benefit doesn't pay for 24-hour-a-day care at home, and custodial personal care is excluded when it's the only care needed. Where a plan offers supplemental in-home support, it's an extra benefit on top of those rules, not care around the clock.
Bring the booklet. We will read it with you.
Home care across Connecticut and New Jersey, and companion care in New York, from an agency licensed by the state. Tell us what’s happening at home, and we’ll explain the options and what care would cost. The first conversation is free, and nothing starts until you say so.