Dental coverage on Medicare: your options

What Original Medicare covers — and doesn’t

Original Medicare (Parts A and B) doesn’t cover routine dental care. Cleanings, exams, fillings, extractions, dentures, and crowns are all on you. The only dental work Medicare pays for is the narrow set tied to a covered medical procedure — for example, a dental exam required before a heart-valve surgery, or jaw reconstruction after an accident. For everyday dental needs, there’s no coverage built into Original Medicare, which is why most people who want it add coverage one of two ways.

Option 1: a Medicare Advantage plan with dental

Many Medicare Advantage (Part C) plans bundle in a dental benefit — often an annual allowance toward cleanings, exams, and sometimes major work. The appeal is convenience: one plan, one card. The limits are that the allowance is frequently modest, the dental network may be narrower than you expect, and if you change Advantage plans the dental coverage changes with it. If you’re choosing an Advantage plan anyway and its dental allowance covers your needs, it may be all you require.

Option 2: a standalone dental plan

A standalone dental plan works alongside Original Medicare — and can sit alongside a Medicare Advantage plan too, if its built-in dental is thin. You choose the coverage level and the network, which usually means fuller and more predictable coverage for major work than a bundled allowance provides. The trade-off is a separate monthly premium. This is the route many people on Original Medicare with a Medigap plan take, since Medicare Supplement (Medigap) plans don’t add dental coverage either.

How to weigh them

Start with the dental work you actually expect. If it’s mostly cleanings and the occasional filling, an Advantage plan’s allowance or a low-cost standalone plan covers it cheaply. If you anticipate major work — crowns, bridges, dentures — look hard at the annual maximum and the share the plan pays for major services, where a richer standalone plan tends to win. And mind the timing: dental plans impose waiting periods on major work, so it pays to enroll before you need a crown, not after.