Does Medicare cover dental?
Original Medicare does not cover routine dental care — cleanings, fillings, dentures, or extractions — but many Medicare Advantage plans add their own dental benefits.
What flips the answer
- Covered when
You're on a Medicare Advantage plan that includes dental benefits — check your plan's Evidence of Coverage for what's included and the annual cap.
- Covered when
The dental service is medically necessary and inseparable from a covered procedure (e.g., an exam before a transplant or cardiac surgery, jaw repair after injury).
- Not covered when
You have Original Medicare only (Parts A and B) and the care is routine — cleanings, fillings, dentures, or extractions.
Original Medicare (Part A and Part B) excludes most dental care by law. Cleanings, exams, X-rays, fillings, crowns, dentures, and most tooth extractions come out of your pocket if Original Medicare is all you have.
There is a narrow exception: Medicare pays for dental services that are medically necessary as part of a covered procedure — for example, a dental exam before a heart valve replacement or an organ transplant, or jaw reconstruction after an accident. The dental work has to be inextricably tied to a covered medical service.
Medicare Advantage (Part C) plans are the practical route to dental coverage. Most Advantage plans bundle some dental benefit, but the benefit varies enormously — some cover only cleanings and X-rays, others include fillings, dentures, and implants up to an annual cap. The details live in your plan's Evidence of Coverage document.
That's the general answer. Yours is written in your actual policy.
Drop in your policy or benefits document and get the answer for your exact coverage — with the clause it comes from. Nothing is stored.
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