Medicare Equipment Choices: Devices, Prosthetics, and Renting or Buying

Adapted from Medicare Coverage of Durable Medical Equipment & Other Devices, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The selected guidance concerns Medicare coverage and payment, not a recommendation for medical treatment. Numbered page references below refer to the linked source publication.

Coverage can depend on medical necessity, the setting, provider participation, and your plan’s rules. Use the cited publication for the full conditions and check the plan year when comparing costs or enrollment choices.

What does Medicare cover?

Read pages 8–10 for some of the items Medicare covers and how much you have to pay for them. This list doesn’t include all covered DME. For questions about if Medicare covers a particular item, visit Medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE. TTY users can call 1-877-486-2048. If you have a Medigap policy, it may help cover some of the costs listed on pages 8–10.

Words in blue are defined on pages 17–18.

DME that Medicare covers includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Canes (however, Medicare doesn’t cover white canes for the blind)
• Commode chairs
• Continuous passive motion (CPM) machines
• Crutches
• Glucose monitors and supplies
• Hospital beds
• Infusion pumps and supplies (when necessary to administer certain drugs)
• Manual wheelchairs and power mobility devices (power wheelchairs or scooters needed for use inside the home)
• Nebulizers and some nebulizer medications (if reasonable and necessary)
• Oxygen equipment and accessories
• Patient lifts to lift you from a bed or wheelchair
• Pressure-reducing beds, mattresses, and mattress overlays used to prevent bed sores
• Sleep apnea and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) devices and accessories
• Suction pumps
• Traction equipment
• Walkers

What you pay

Generally, you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after you pay your Medicare Part B deductible for the year. The Medicare-approved amount is the lower of the actual charge for the item or the fee Medicare sets for the item.

The amount you pay may vary depending on the DME item. You also may be able to rent or buy the equipment.

Prosthetic & orthotic items

What Medicare covers

• Arm, leg, back, and neck braces (orthotics)
• Artificial limbs and eyes
• Breast prostheses (including a mastectomy bra) after a mastectomy
• Ostomy bags and certain related supplies
• Urological supplies
• Therapeutic shoes or inserts for people with diabetes who have severe diabetes-related foot disease

– The doctor who treats your diabetes must certify your need for therapeutic shoes or inserts. A podiatrist or other qualified doctor must prescribe the shoes and inserts. A doctor or other qualified individual (like a pedorthist, orthotist, or prosthetist) must fit and provide the shoes. Medicare Part B covers the furnishing and fitting of either one pair of custom-molded shoes and inserts or one pair of extra-depth shoes each calendar year. Medicare also covers 2 additional pairs of inserts each calendar year for custom-molded shoes and 3 pairs of inserts each calendar year for extra-depth shoes. Medicare may cover shoe modifications instead of inserts.

What you pay You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after you pay your Part B deductible for the year. These amounts may be different if the supplier doesn’t accept assignment. For more information, go to page 10.

Corrective lenses

What Medicare covers Prosthetic lenses:

• Cataract glasses (for aphakia or absence of the lens of the eye)
• One pair of conventional glasses or contact lenses after each surgery with insertion of an intraocular lens
• Intraocular lenses

Important: Only standard frames are covered. Medicare will only pay for contact lenses or eyeglasses provided by a supplier enrolled in Medicare no matter who submits the claim (you or your supplier).

Corrective lenses (continued)

What you pay Medicare will cover one pair of eyeglasses or contact lenses after each cataract surgery with an intraocular lens. You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after you pay the Part B deductible for the year. Costs may be different if the supplier doesn’t accept assignment. If you want to upgrade the frames, you pay any additional cost.

What’s assignment?

Assignment means that your doctor, provider, or supplier agrees (or is required by law) to accept the Medicare-approved amount as full payment for covered services.

If your doctor, provider, or supplier accepts assignment:

• Your out-of-pocket costs may be less.
• They agree to charge you only the Medicare deductible and coinsurance for the Medicare-approved amount and usually wait for Medicare to pay its share before asking you to pay your share.
• They have to submit your claim directly to Medicare and can’t charge you for submitting the claim.

Some providers and suppliers haven’t agreed and/or aren’t required by law to accept assignment for all Medicare-covered services, but they can still choose to accept assignment for individual services. The providers and suppliers who haven’t agreed to accept assignment for all services are called “non-participating.” You might have to pay more for their services if they don’t accept assignment for the care they provide to you.

How will I know if I can buy DME or if Medicare will only pay for me to rent it?

If your supplier is a Medicare-enrolled supplier, they’ll know if Medicare allows you to buy a particular kind of DME, or just pays for you to rent it. Medicare pays for most DME on a rental basis. Medicare only buys inexpensive or routinely bought items, like canes, walkers, and blood sugar monitors, or complex rehabilitative power wheelchairs. For some more expensive equipment, like wheelchairs and hospital beds, Medicare pays to rent the item for 13 months of continuous use. Once the 13th month of rental ends, the supplier must transfer ownership of the equipment to you.

Words in blue are defined on pages 17–18.

Buying equipment

If you own Medicare-covered DME and other devices, Medicare may also cover repairs and replacement parts. Medicare will pay 80% of the Medicare-approved amount (up to the cost of replacing the item) for repairs. You pay the other 20%. Your costs may be higher if the supplier doesn’t accept assignment.

Note: The equipment you buy may be replaced if it’s lost, stolen, damaged beyond repair, or used for more than the reasonable useful lifetime of the equipment, which is generally 5 years from the date you start using the item.

Renting equipment

If you rent DME and other devices, Medicare makes monthly payments for the equipment. How long monthly payments continue vary based on the type of equipment. Total rental payments for inexpensive or routinely bought items are limited to the fee Medicare sets to buy the item. If you’ll need these items for more than a few months, you may decide to buy these items instead of rent them. Monthly payments for frequently serviced items, like ventilators, are made as long as the equipment is medically necessary. You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount after you pay your Part B deductible for the year. Medicare pays the other 80%.

The supplier will pick up the equipment when you no longer need it. Any costs for repairs or replacement parts for the rented equipment are the supplier’s responsibility. The supplier will also pick up the rented equipment if it needs repairs. You don’t have to bring the rented equipment back to the supplier.

Do I need to tell my supplier if my needs change?

You may need to tell your supplier about changes in your life that will affect how and when you get your DME. Let your supplier know if:

• You’re changing insurance companies
• You’re changing doctors
• You’re in the hospital or will soon be admitted to the hospital
• You’re in a nursing home or will soon be admitted to a nursing home
• You’re traveling
• You’re moving
• You or your secondary contact have changed your phone number

If you use oxygen and you’ll need a portable oxygen concentrator for travel, let your supplier know weeks in advance.

Source and further reading

Medicare Coverage of Durable Medical Equipment & Other Devices — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Public domain U.S. government educational material, accessed October 28, 2026. Fynoptic has selected sections, removed print navigation, and reformatted the text for this guide. The agency does not endorse Fynoptic.