Original Medicare (Parts A & B): Travel

Medicare generally doesn't cover healthcare when traveling outside the U.S.* There are some exceptions, including cases where Medicare may pay for services received while on board a ship within the territorial waters adjoining the land areas of the U.S.

Medicare may pay for inpatient hospital, provider, or ambulance services received in a foreign country in these rare cases:

• Your loved one is in the U.S. when an emergency occurs and the foreign hospital is closer than the nearest U.S. hospital that can treat their medical condition (think small regions where Canada, Mexico, or a Dutch/French/English Caribbean island may be closer than a U.S. hospital).

• Your loved one is traveling in Canada without unreasonable delay by the most direct route between Alaska and another U.S. state when a medical emergency occurs, and the Canadian hospital is closer than the nearest U.S. hospital that can treat the emergency.

• Your loved one lives in the U.S. and the foreign hospital is closer to their home than the nearest U.S. hospital that can treat the medical condition, regardless of whether an emergency exists.

Medicare may cover medically necessary ambulance transportation to a foreign hospital only with admission for medically necessary covered inpatient hospital services.

*The "U.S." is defined as the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.