The short answer
Original Medicare does not cover most dental care, routine eye exams, eyeglasses or hearing aids. It does cover dental work linked to a covered medical treatment, one pair of eyeglasses after cataract surgery, and diagnostic hearing and balance exams. Some Medicare Advantage plans offer these as extra benefits.
You ask one question and Medicare answers it on five separate pages. Three of them are headed Not Covered. One is headed Covered by Part B. And on three of the five, the sentence about what a plan might pay instead ends by telling you to go and ask the plan.
Does Medicare cover dental and vision?
Original Medicare does not cover most dental care, routine eye exams, or eyeglasses. Medicare's own pages say so in three separate places, each with its own headline verdict. Narrow exceptions exist inside each one, and every exception is tied to a medical treatment rather than to routine care.
The dental page is the least absolute of the three. Its status line reads that you pay all costs in most cases, and its rule is that in most cases Medicare does not cover dental services like routine cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions, or items like dentures and implants.
Those three words, in most cases, are worth holding on to. The same page also carries a Part A badge and a Part B badge, so something in there is covered, and the rest of this page is about finding it.
Vision splits into two pages rather than one. The eyeglasses and contact lenses page is headed Not Covered and says Part B does not usually cover them. A separate page, filed under Eye exams (routine), is also headed Not Covered.
That second page is worth knowing exists. Medicare defines a routine eye exam as one that checks for overall eye health and looks for signs of vision problems or disease, and it states that it does not cover routine eye exams, sometimes called eye refractions, for eyeglasses or contact lenses.
What about hearing aids?
Medicare does not cover hearing aids or the exams to fit them. It does cover diagnostic hearing and balance exams under Part B when your provider orders them to find out whether you need medical treatment. The exam and the device sit on two separate pages with opposite verdicts.
The hearing aids page is headed Not Covered and describes them plainly as electronic devices that help people with hearing loss hear better. Its cost line says you pay all costs for non-covered services, including hearing aids and exams.
The other page is headed Covered by Part B. Medicare covers diagnostic hearing and balance exams, which it also calls fall risk exams, if your doctor or other health care provider orders them to find out if you need medical treatment.
The most useful sentence sits on the covered page rather than the uncovered one. Medicare states on that same covered page that Original Medicare does not cover hearing aids or exams for fitting hearing aids.
So one page carries both halves of the answer. The test it is drawing is not about your ears. It is about whether the appointment is there to diagnose something or to fit a device.
What does Original Medicare cover?
Original Medicare covers dental work that is linked to a covered medical treatment, one pair of eyeglasses after cataract surgery that implants an intraocular lens, and diagnostic hearing and balance exams your provider orders. Each of those carries its own conditions, and none of them is routine care.
| Medicare's page | Its headline verdict | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Dental services | You pay all costs in most cases | Reading most cases as always |
| Eyeglasses and contact lenses | Not Covered | Missing the pair after cataract surgery |
| Hearing and balance exams | Covered by Part B | Assuming all hearing care is excluded |
| Hearing aids | Not Covered | Expecting the exam page to cover devices |
The dental exceptions come in two categories. The first is some dental services you get when you are admitted as a hospital inpatient for your dental procedure, either because of your underlying medical condition or the severity of the procedure.
The second is specific inpatient or outpatient dental services directly related to certain covered medical treatments, and Medicare adds the condition out loud: you must get the dental service because it is linked to the success of the medical treatment you need.
Medicare then names five examples of that link. An oral exam and dental treatment before a heart valve replacement or a bone marrow, organ, or kidney transplant. A procedure, like a tooth extraction, to treat a mouth infection before cancer treatment services like chemotherapy.
Treatment for a complication you experience while getting head and neck cancer treatment services. Dental or oral exams before and while getting Medicare-covered dialysis services if you have End-Stage Renal Disease. And medically necessary tests and treatments to remove an oral or dental infection before and while getting those same dialysis services, again for someone with End-Stage Renal Disease.
The vision exception is a single sentence and it is narrow. Part B covers one pair of eyeglasses with standard frames, or one set of contact lenses, after each cataract surgery that implants an intraocular lens.
Two conditions ride along with it. You pay any additional costs for upgraded frames, and Medicare will only pay for contact lenses or eyeglasses from a supplier that participates in Medicare, whether you or your provider submits the claim.
Hearing carries a frequency rule of its own. You can visit an audiologist once every 12 months without an order from your health care provider. Medicare allows that for two reasons only: non-acute hearing conditions, which it describes as hearing loss that happens over many years, and diagnostic services related to hearing loss treated with surgically implanted hearing devices.
For the covered dental services, Medicare states the share rather than the amount: you pay 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount after you meet the Part B deductible, and in an outpatient hospital or other facility setting you also pay a copayment to the facility.
Do Advantage plans cover more?
Medicare says some Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits that Original Medicare does not cover, and it names vision, hearing and dental as the examples. It repeats that sentence word for word on three of these five pages, and every time it ends by telling you to contact the plan.
Call that The Same Sentence, Three Times. It appears on the eyeglasses and contact lenses page, on the routine eye exams page, and on the hearing aids page, in identical words each time.
On two of them it sits under its own small heading about extra benefits from plans, which reads like a footnote. On the hearing aids page it is not a footnote at all. It sits under the heading Coverage details, and it is the entire contents of that section.
That is the government describing the coverage of a thing it does not cover by pointing at somebody else. Every one of those sentences is Medicare's own. Noticing that it raises the subject three times and never once prices it is ours.
How much are those extra benefits really worth?
No government page read for this article states what those extra benefits are worth. Not a dollar amount, not a range, not an average. Every one of them ends the same way, by telling you to contact the plan, so the only figure that exists is the one your own plan gives you.
A number is easy to find and hard to source, and this page carries none for that reason.
What Medicare publishes is the instruction, not the value. Contact the plan for more information is the end of the sentence every time, and no page read here goes further than that.
So this publication carries no figure for it, and the reason is stated rather than hidden. There is nothing to cite. Naming that gap is more use to you than filling it with an average that would not survive a look at your own plan documents.
The question is answerable, just not here and not in general. It is answered by the specific plan you are looking at, in its own benefits document, for the year you are asking about.
What are my other options?
Medicare names two routes on these pages and no others. The first is the medically linked care inside Original Medicare, which is narrow and tied to a treatment. The second is an Advantage plan's extra benefit, which it tells you to ask the plan about. Nothing else appears.
The first route is not a gap in the rules, it is the rule. A tooth extraction before chemotherapy is covered because of the chemotherapy. The same extraction on its own is not.
The second route is the one those three repeated sentences point at, and the instruction attached to it has not changed anywhere on these pages. Contact the plan.
There is a third thing worth knowing about the covered pair of glasses. Medicare will only pay for them from a supplier that participates in Medicare, and upgraded frames are yours to pay for.
What is not on any of these five pages is any other named route. No charity, no discount scheme, no standalone policy is mentioned on the pages this article is built from, and none is invented here to fill the space.
What this means for you
Original Medicare leaves most dental, vision and hearing care to you, with narrow exceptions tied to medical treatment. The hearing exam is covered and the hearing aid is not. What a plan's extra benefit is worth is the one question the government answers by sending you to the plan.
The exceptions are real and they are reachable. Dental work attached to a covered treatment, one pair of glasses after cataract surgery from a participating supplier, and an audiologist visit once every 12 months for the conditions Medicare names.
If you are weighing a plan against Original Medicare, or looking at a supplement policy, the Plans section carries both comparisons, and the Costs section carries what Part B charges once a service is covered.
FAQ
Will Medicare pay for dentures or implants?
No, and Medicare names both of them directly rather than leaving them to be inferred. Its rule is that in most cases it does not cover dental services like routine cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions, or items like dentures and implants.
The exceptions that do exist are not about the item, they are about what the item is attached to. Medicare covers some dental services you get when you are admitted as a hospital inpatient for a dental procedure, either because of your underlying medical condition or because of the severity of the procedure.
It also covers specific dental services directly related to certain covered medical treatments, where you must get the dental service because it is linked to the success of that treatment. A denture does not become covered by being necessary to you. It would have to be tied to a covered medical treatment in the way Medicare describes.
When will Medicare actually pay for dental work?
When the dental work is doing a job for a medical treatment, and Medicare publishes five examples of what that looks like. An oral exam and dental treatment before you get a heart valve replacement or a bone marrow, organ, or kidney transplant.
A procedure such as a tooth extraction to treat a mouth infection before you get cancer treatment services like chemotherapy. Treatment for a complication you experience while getting head and neck cancer treatment services. Dental or oral exams before and while getting Medicare-covered dialysis services if you have End-Stage Renal Disease.
And medically necessary tests and treatments to remove an oral or dental infection before and while getting those dialysis services. The pattern running through all five is the same: the mouth is being treated so that something else can go ahead safely.
Does Medicare cover an eye exam?
It depends entirely on what the exam is for, and Medicare files the routine kind on its own page. It describes a routine eye exam as one that checks for overall eye health and looks for signs of vision problems or disease, and that page is headed Not Covered.
Medicare states it does not cover routine eye exams, sometimes called eye refractions, for eyeglasses or contact lenses. Eyeglasses and contact lenses sit on a separate page, also headed Not Covered, with one exception written into it.
Part B covers one pair of eyeglasses with standard frames, or one set of contact lenses, after each cataract surgery that implants an intraocular lens. Two conditions come with that pair: you pay any extra for upgraded frames, and the supplier has to participate in Medicare.
Can I see an audiologist without a referral?
Yes, once every 12 months, and only for two named reasons. Medicare states you can visit an audiologist once every 12 months without an order from your health care provider.
It allows that for two reasons only: non-acute hearing conditions, which it describes as hearing loss that happens over many years, and diagnostic services related to hearing loss treated with surgically implanted hearing devices.
That sits inside the wider rule that Part B covers diagnostic hearing and balance exams if your doctor or other health care provider orders them to find out if you need medical treatment.
The limit on all of it is stated on the same covered page: Original Medicare does not cover hearing aids or exams for fitting hearing aids. The visit that diagnoses is inside the benefit and the visit that fits a device is outside it.
How do I find out what a plan's dental or vision benefit covers?
By asking the plan, which is the instruction Medicare itself gives every time it raises the subject. The sentence it uses is the same on all three pages that carry it: some Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits that Original Medicare does not cover, like vision, hearing, or dental, and contact the plan for more information.
It appears on the eyeglasses and contact lenses page, on the routine eye exams page, and on the hearing aids page, where it is not a footnote but the whole of the coverage details section.
What it never does on any of those pages is say what such a benefit includes, what it limits, or what it is worth. Those answers live in the individual plan's own documents rather than on Medicare's coverage pages.
