Medicare’s Preventive Services
The best way for you and the person you are caring for to stay healthy is to live a healthy lifestyle. You can live a healthy lifestyle and prevent disease by exercising, eating well, keeping a healthy weight, and not smoking. Medicare can help you and the person you’re caring for focus on preventive care.
Medicare pays for many preventive services to keep people with Medicare healthy. Preventive services can find health problems early, when treatment works best, and can help prevent certain diseases or illnesses. Preventive services include exams, lab tests, and screenings. They also include shots, monitoring, and information to help people take care of their health.
Medicare helps pay for these following preventive tests and services:
Exams
Screenings
Colorectal Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Breast Cancer (mammograms)
Pelvic Exam
Clinical Breast Exam (as part of the pelvic exam)
Other Preventive Benefits and Benefits to Help Keep You Healthy
Diabetes Supplies and Self-Management Training
Bone Mass Measurement
Medical Nutrition Therapy
Tobacco Use Cessation (counseling to quit smoking)
Original Medicare covers 100% of the Medicare-approved amount for most preventive services. Additional conditions will apply.
Shots
Pneumococcal
Flu
Hepatitis B (for people at medium to high risk)
One-Time "Welcome to Medicare" Preventive Visit (within the first 12 months that you have Part B) Yearly "Wellness" visit
Pap Test
Cardiovascular
Diabetes (for people at risk)
Glaucoma (for people at high risk) 23 Section 3: Health Care Choices Medicare’s Preventive Services (continued)
Next Steps
To learn more about Medicare’s preventive services, you can do any of the following:
• Call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) to find out what preventive services the person is able to get and when they are able to get them. TTY users should call 1-877-486-2048.
• Visit www.MyMedicare.gov to help the person you’re caring for get direct access to his or her preventive health information. You can see a description of covered preventive services, the date he or she last had the service, and the next date he or she can get the service. See page 46 for more information about MyMedicare.gov.
• Visit www.medicare.gov/Publications to view the booklet "Your Guide to Medicare’s Preventive Services."