Ambulance services
covers ground ambulance transportation when traveling in any other vehicle could endanger your health, and you need medically necessary services from a:
- Hospital
- Critical access hospital
- Rural emergency hospital, or
- Skilled nursing facility
Medicare may pay for emergency ambulance transportation in an airplane or helicopter if you need immediate and rapid transport that ground transportation can’t provide.
In some cases, Medicare may pay for limited, medically necessary, non-emergency ambulance transportation if you have a written order from your doctor stating that the transportation is medically necessary. For example, someone with End-Stage Renal Disease may need medically necessary ambulance transport to a kidney dialysis facility.
Your costs in Original Medicare
After you meet the Part B deductible , you pay 20% of the Medicare-Approved Amount .
Things to know
Medicare will only cover ambulance services to the nearest appropriate medical facility that’s able to give you the care you need.
The ambulance company must give you an "
" when both of these apply:
- You got ambulance services in a non-emergency situation.
- The ambulance company believes that Medicare may not pay for your specific ambulance service.