Guide
Preparing your home for a hospital bed
The bed is the easy part — we bring it, assemble it and set it up. The room, the power and the route in are yours, and they are best sorted before the van arrives.
Choose the room deliberately
- Close to a bathroom beats a nicer room farther away, every time.
- Think about the caregiver, not just the patient. Care is given from the sides of the bed — pushed against a wall, every task happens from one side only. If a caregiver will help with turning or transfers, both sides need standing room.
- Day life matters. A bed in a living area keeps the person in the household’s daily life; a back bedroom is quieter and more private. There is no wrong answer, but choose it rather than defaulting.
- The door still has to open, and the path to the bed needs to be walkable in the dark.
Space and the route in
- Hospital beds are longer and sit higher than most home beds — allow generous clearance on both sides and at the head end for care, equipment and cleaning.
- We deliver in components and assemble in the room, but access still decides what is possible: doorway widths, tight stair turns, elevator dimensions in a condo building. Measure the tightest point and tell us about it when scheduling.
- Firm flooring beats thick carpet for casters — and if a patient lift will be used, its base must roll under the bed, which a hospital bed frame allows.
- Move the existing bed and furniture before delivery day, and decide where the old mattress is going.
Power, honestly
- A hospital bed needs a grounded wall outlet close by — not an extension cord or a power strip, which are a trip hazard and a fire risk under a bed.
- If an alternating-pressure or low-air-loss mattress is coming, its pump needs power too, with the air intake unblocked — not pushed against a wall.
- If the person cannot reposition themselves and the mattress is doing that work, a power outage matters. In South Florida that is a hurricane plan, and it is made in advance — the hurricane guide →
Decisions to make before delivery day
- Rails are a clinical decision, not a default. They assist repositioning and transfers — but a rail used to keep a confused person in bed is an entrapment risk. Talk it through with the clinician, and with us.
- The mattress surface is its own decision — if skin is a concern, see pressure-relief surfaces before defaulting to the standard mattress.
- A trapeze or overbed table is far easier to include with the delivery than to retrofit afterward.
- Who will be home for delivery and training? The person who will actually operate the bed — usually the caregiver — is the person who most needs to be there.
Related guides
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About this guide
This is general information written to be useful, not medical advice, and it is not a coverage determination. It does not replace what your own clinician has told you about your own situation — where the two differ, follow your clinician.
We deliberately publish no prices, allowables or fee-schedule figures. Those vary by plan, state and year, and a stale number is worse than none. Call (800) 304-7030 and we will verify your actual benefit.
Not sure where to start?
Call us and tell us what happened — a surgery, a new diagnosis, a discharge date, a supply you keep running out of. We will tell you what is usually needed, check your benefits, and ask your prescriber for the order if you do not have one yet.
