• Medically necessary services: Services or supplies that are needed to diagnose or treat your medical condition and that meet accepted standards of medical practice.

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• Preventive services: Health care to prevent illness (like the flu) or detect it at an early stage, when treatment is most likely to work best.

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• Clinical research  

  • ​Test how well different types of medical care work and if they’re safe, like how well a cancer drug works

  • Clinical research studies may involve diagnostic tests, surgical treatments, medicine, or new types of patient care

  • Study how well new treatments and tests benefit patients

  • Compare different treatments for the same condition to see which treatment is better

  • Study new ways to use existing treatments

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• Ambulance services

  • ​Covers ground ambulance transportation when you need to be transported to a hospital, critical access hospital, or skilled nursing facility for medically necessary services, and transportation in any other vehicle could endanger your health

  • Medicare may pay for emergency ambulance transportation in an airplane or helicopter to a hospital if you need immediate and rapid ambulance transportation that ground transportation can’t provide

  • In some cases, Medicare may pay for limited, medically necessary, non-emergency ambulance transportation if you have a written order from your doctor stating that ambulance transportation is medically necessary

  • You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount, and the Part B deductible applies. 

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• Durable medical equipment (DME)

  • Blood sugar monitors

  • Blood sugar test strips

  • Canes 

  • Commode chairs

  • Continuous passive motion devices 

  • Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices

  • Crutches

  • Hospital beds

  • Infusion pumps & supplies

  • Lancet devices & lancets

  • Nebulizers & nebulizer medications

  • Oxygen equipment & accessories

  • Patient lifts 

  • Pressure-reducing support surfaces

  • Suction pumps

  • Traction equipment

  • Walkers

  • Wheelchairs & scooters 

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• Mental health

  • Inpatient

    • ​Mental health care services help with conditions like depression and anxiety.

  • Outpatient

    • ​One depression screening per year. The screening must be done in a primary care doctor’s office or primary care clinic that can provide follow-up treatment and referrals.

    • Individual and group psychotherapy with doctors or certain other licensed professionals allowed by the state where you get the services.

    • Family counseling, if the main purpose is to help with your treatment.

    • Testing to find out if you’re getting the services you need and if your current treatment is helping you.

    • Psychiatric evaluation.

    • Medication management.

    • Certain prescription drugs that aren’t usually “self administered” (drugs you would normally take on your own), like some injections.

    • Diagnostic tests.

    • Partial hospitalization.

    • A one-time “Welcome to Medicare” preventive visit. This visit includes a review of your possible risk factors for depression.

    • A yearly “Wellness” visit. Talk to your doctor or other health care provider about changes in your mental health. They can evaluate your changes year to year.

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  • Partial hospitalization

    • ​Provides a structured program of outpatient psychiatric services as an alternative to inpatient psychiatric care. 

    • It’s more intense than care you get in a doctor’s or therapist’s office.

    • This treatment is provided during the day and doesn’t require an overnight stay

    • Medicare helps cover partial hospitalization services when they’re provided through a hospital outpatient department or community mental health center

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• Limited outpatient prescription drugs

  • ​Covers a limited number of outpatient prescription drugs under limited conditions.

  • Drugs covered under Part B are drugs you wouldn't usually give to yourself, like those you get at a doctor's office or hospital outpatient setting.