Does Medicare Cover Dental, Vision, and Hearing?

Mostly, no. Original Medicare doesn’t cover routine dental care, routine eye exams or eyeglasses, or hearing aids. It does cover a handful of dental, eye, and hearing services when they’re tied to a medical condition — a dental exam before a heart valve replacement, eye exams for diabetes, a diagnostic hearing test your doctor orders. The line Medicare draws is between medical care that happens to involve your teeth, eyes, or ears, and routine care that keeps them working. It pays for the first and not the second.

That line surprises a lot of people at 65, because the coverage they had at work usually came with a dental plan and a vision plan attached. Medicare doesn’t. Here’s exactly what it covers in each category, what it doesn’t, and where people go to fill the holes.

Dental

Medicare’s own language is that in most cases it doesn’t cover dental services like routine cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions, or items like dentures and implants. If you go to the dentist twice a year for a cleaning and a checkup, Original Medicare pays nothing toward it.

What it may cover is dental work that’s linked to a covered medical treatment — where the dental service has to happen for the medical treatment to succeed. Medicare’s examples:

• An oral exam and dental treatment before 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 cancer treatment like chemotherapy.
• Treatment for a complication you experience while getting head and neck cancer treatment.
• Dental or oral exams before and during Medicare-covered dialysis if you have End-Stage Renal Disease, plus medically necessary tests and treatment to clear an oral or dental infection before and during dialysis.
• Some dental services you get when you’re admitted to the hospital as an inpatient for the dental procedure itself, because of an underlying medical condition or the severity of the procedure.

When one of these applies, you pay the usual Original Medicare costs. For Part B-covered dental services in 2026, that’s 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after the $283 Part B deductible, plus a facility copayment if it’s done in an outpatient hospital setting. If it’s an inpatient stay under Part A, the $1,736 deductible per benefit period applies.

Notice what isn’t on that list: a cracked tooth, a root canal, a crown, a denture that no longer fits. Those are ordinary dental problems, and Medicare treats them as ordinary dental problems. The fact that they hurt or affect how you eat doesn’t make them medical in Medicare’s eyes.

Vision

Medicare separates eye disease from eye sight. It covers the first and generally not the second.

Not covered: routine eye exams (sometimes called eye refractions) for eyeglasses or contact lenses, and the eyeglasses or contacts themselves. You pay all costs.

Covered under Part B, at 20% after the deductible:

• A yearly eye exam for diabetic retinopathy if you have diabetes.
• A glaucoma screening once every 12 months if you’re at high risk: you have diabetes, a family history of glaucoma, you’re African American and 50 or older, or Hispanic and 65 or older.
• Certain diagnostic tests and treatments, including some injectable drugs, for age-related macular degeneration.
• Cataract surgery that implants a conventional intraocular lens.

The cataract rule has a well-known exception that people miss. After each cataract surgery that implants an intraocular lens, Part B covers one pair of eyeglasses with standard frames, or one set of contact lenses. You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after the deductible, and you pay any extra for upgraded frames. Medicare only pays if the supplier participates in Medicare — so ask before you order, not after. If you had cataract surgery last year and paid full price for glasses, it’s worth a phone call.

Hearing

Not covered: hearing aids, and exams for fitting hearing aids. Medicare says it plainly — you pay all costs. That’s the single biggest gap of the three for many people, because hearing aids are the most expensive item on this page and the one you’re most likely to need as you age.

Covered under Part B: diagnostic hearing and balance (fall-risk) exams, if your doctor or other health care provider orders them to find out whether you need medical treatment. You pay 20% after the Part B deductible, and a hospital copayment if it’s done in a hospital outpatient setting.

One newer wrinkle: you can see an audiologist once every 12 months without an order from your doctor, but only for non-acute hearing conditions such as hearing loss that has developed over many years, or for diagnostic services related to hearing loss treated with surgically implanted hearing devices. That visit is a test, not a fitting. It can tell you how much hearing you’ve lost; it can’t buy you the device.

Cochlear implants are different from hearing aids. Medicare lists some surgically implanted prosthetic devices, including cochlear implants, among what Part B covers as prosthetics. Either Part A or Part B covers the surgery depending on whether it’s inpatient or outpatient.

The short version

Where people fill the gaps

Medicare Advantage. Medicare’s coverage pages say the same sentence over and over: some Medicare Advantage Plans (Part C) offer extra benefits that Original Medicare doesn’t cover, like vision, hearing, or dental. These extras are set by each plan, not by Medicare, so what “dental coverage” means varies a lot. One plan may cover only cleanings and X-rays. Another may cover fillings, crowns, and dentures up to a yearly dollar limit. A hearing benefit may mean a discount on a device through a specific vendor, an allowance toward a hearing aid, or coverage of a particular set of devices. Read the plan’s Evidence of Coverage for the actual terms, and check whether your dentist or audiologist is in the plan’s dental or hearing network — it’s often a separate network from the medical one. These benefits can also change from year to year, so read the Annual Notice of Change each fall.

Medigap doesn’t help here. Medicare Supplement Insurance pays your share of costs for services Original Medicare covers. Medicare states outright that Medigap plans generally don’t cover vision or dental care, hearing aids, or glasses. A Medigap policy will pay the 20% on your diabetic eye exam; it won’t buy you glasses.

Standalone dental, vision, and hearing insurance. These are sold separately by private insurers and aren’t part of Medicare at all. They work like the dental plan you may have had at work, with their own premiums, waiting periods, and yearly limits.

Medicaid, if you qualify. For adults, dental benefits in Medicaid are up to each state, and Medicaid.gov notes there are no minimum requirements for adult dental coverage. Some states cover a lot, some cover emergencies only, some cover nothing. If you have both Medicare and Medicaid, your state’s Medicaid program — not Medicare — is where to ask about dental.

What people get wrong

“It’s medically necessary, so Medicare will cover it.” Medical necessity is required, but it isn’t sufficient. A dental infection is medically necessary to treat; Medicare still doesn’t cover it unless it’s tied to one of the specific covered treatments above. The test isn’t whether you need it. It’s whether it’s connected to a Medicare-covered medical procedure.

Assuming a Medicare Advantage dental benefit is full dental insurance. Many plans’ dental benefits are preventive-only, or capped at a yearly amount that one crown can exhaust. The benefit is real, but read the limit before you plan a major procedure around it.

Paying full price for glasses after cataract surgery. One pair, standard frames, from a participating supplier, after each surgery. It’s a covered benefit that goes unused constantly.

Skipping the diabetic eye exam because “Medicare doesn’t do eyes.” It does do this one, once a year, and it catches retinopathy before it costs you vision.

Buying a Medigap policy expecting it to include dental. It won’t. If a Medigap seller offers a “dental rider,” that’s a separate product bundled alongside the policy, not part of the standardized Medigap coverage.

Where to check

Medicare.gov’s “What’s covered?” search lets you type in a specific item — “dentures,” “hearing aids,” “eye exam” — and get the official answer. The Plan Finder at medicare.gov/plan-compare shows which Medicare Advantage plans in your ZIP code list dental, vision, and hearing extras, though you’ll still need the plan’s own documents for the details. Your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) offers free, unbiased counseling. And 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; TTY users can call 1-877-486-2048.

Sources: Medicare.gov, “Dental services” (medicare.gov/coverage/dental-services); Medicare.gov, “What’s not covered?” (medicare.gov/providers-services/original-medicare/not-covered); Medicare.gov, “Eyeglasses & contact lenses” (medicare.gov/coverage/eyeglasses-contact-lenses); Medicare.gov, “Eye exams (routine)” (medicare.gov/coverage/eye-exams-routine); Medicare.gov, “Eye exams (for diabetes)” (medicare.gov/coverage/eye-exams-for-diabetes); Medicare.gov, “Glaucoma screenings” (medicare.gov/coverage/glaucoma-screenings); Medicare.gov, “Macular degeneration tests & treatment” (medicare.gov/coverage/macular-degeneration-tests-treatment); Medicare.gov, “Cataract surgery” (medicare.gov/coverage/cataract-surgery); Medicare.gov, “Hearing & balance exams” (medicare.gov/coverage/hearing-balance-exams); Medicare.gov, “Hearing aids” (medicare.gov/coverage/hearing-aids); Medicare.gov, “Prosthetic devices” (medicare.gov/coverage/prosthetic-devices); Medicare.gov, “Learn what Medigap covers” (medicare.gov/health-drug-plans/medigap/basics/coverage); CMS.gov, “2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles” (cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2026-medicare-parts-b-premiums-deductibles); Medicaid.gov, “Dental Care” (medicaid.gov/medicaid/benefits/dental-care).