Medicare Part B covers ground ambulance transportation when you need to be transported to a hospital, critical access hospital, or skilled nursing facility for medically necessary services, and transportation in any other vehicle could endanger your health. Medicare may pay for emergency ambulance transportation in an airplane or helicopter to a hospital if you need immediate and rapid ambulance transportation not available by ground transportation.

Medicare may pay for limited, medically necessary, non-emergency ambulance transportation in some cases if you have a written order from your doctor stating that ambulance transportation is medically necessary.

If you only have Original Medicare, you will have to pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount; the Part B deductible also applies. If you are enrolled in a Medicare Supplement or Medicare Advantage, your deductible, copay, or coinsurance may be different or less depending on the plan you have chosen.