What Exactly Are Medical Expenses?

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Medical expenditures are the costs of diagnosing, curing, mitigating, treating, or preventing sickness, and they may impact any portion or function of the body. Payments for legitimate medical services performed by doctors, surgeons, dentists, and other medical practitioners are included in these charges. They include the price of the necessary equipment, supplies, and diagnostic gadgets.
Medical care expenses must be incurred largely to treat or prevent a physical or mental impairment or condition. They exclude costs that are simply good to overall health, such as vitamins or a vacation.
Medical expenditures include the premiums you pay for insurance that covers the costs of medical treatment, as well as the costs of transportation to and from medical care. Medical costs also include amounts spent for qualifying long-term care services and a limited number of qualified long-term care insurance contracts.
You may only include medical and dental costs paid this year, but not payments for medical or dental services you will get in the future. (However, for an exception, see Decedent under Whose Medical Expenses Deduction Can You Include) This is not the rule for determining whether a cost is eligible for reimbursement under a flexible spending agreement (FSA).
If you pay for medical bills with a check, the day the check is sent or delivered is usually the date of payment. If you pay your medical expenditures using a "pay-by-phone" or "online" account, the date indicated on the financial institution's statement indicating when payment was made is the date of payment. Include medical expenditures paid to your credit card in the year the charge is made, not when you actually pay the amount charged, if you use a credit card.
Insurance premiums paid by an employer-sponsored health insurance plan should not be included in your medical expenses unless the payments are disclosed on your Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Also, unless the amount paid is listed on your Form W-2, don't include any other medical and dental expenditures covered by the plan.