Getting ready for surgery? You've got this.
Pick your procedure below for the full checklist — what to buy, what to borrow, and what Medicare actually pays for, in the order you'll need it. Last checked .
Most searched recoveries
The 8 procedures we get asked about most, ranked by measured search demand (Bing Webmaster Tools broad-impression data) — not a guess.
Hip Replacement
The short list of what to buy before surgery day, plus the full before-surgery-through-week-6 checklist — verified against Medicare data.
Knee Replacement
The short list of what to buy before surgery day, plus the full before-surgery-through-week-6 checklist — verified against Medicare data.
Cataract Surgery
4 essentials for the light-sensitive weeks after surgery, about $115 — Medicare covers exactly one pair of glasses afterward, never the prescription sunglasses recovery actually calls for.
Hernia Surgery
5 essentials for bracing a cough, keeping swelling down, and not bending to reach the floor — only one item on this checklist carries a Medicare billing code at all, and it pays $0, by law.
Hysterectomy
4 essentials across all three surgical approaches — abdominal, vaginal, and laparoscopic/robotic — plus the honest range on lifting, driving, and recovery time by route.
Shoulder Surgery
Rotator cuff repair or shoulder replacement — 5 essentials, not 6. The sling is free; here's what actually gets bought, and why.
Wisdom Teeth
Genuinely just 2 essentials, not a padded checklist — Medicare calls this exact procedure a textbook non-coverage example; the IRS names it by name as FSA/HSA eligible.
Shoulder Replacement
5 essentials, about $105–115 — nearly the same basket as our rotator cuff repair hub, because the equipment need really is the same; what's different is who's having this surgery and how it gets billed.
Browse the rest by what's healing
The other 32 guides, grouped by body area so it's easier to scan than one long list.
Joint & bone
More orthopedic recoveries, beyond the two joint replacements above.
Back Surgery
5 essentials for spinal fusion, laminectomy, or discectomy recovery — a hip-hinge dressing technique replaces the reacher, and a raised toilet seat can make even a Medicare-covered commode stop being covered.
Foot & Ankle Surgery
5 essentials for bunionectomy, ankle fracture, Achilles repair, or ankle fusion/replacement — Medicare covers crutches but pays zero for the knee scooter that does the identical job.
Bunion Surgery
3 essentials that apply no matter which surgical technique you had, about $81 — plus crutches or a knee scooter if you're kept off your foot for weeks. The surgical shoe nearly everyone wears is excluded from Medicare by federal law.
Meniscus Surgery
4 shared essentials for everyone, about $125–130, plus a hinged knee brace only if your meniscus was stitched back together rather than trimmed — your surgeon can answer which in a sentence.
ACL & Knee Arthroscopy
Two different shopping lists depending on what your surgeon actually did inside the knee — 3 shared essentials for everyone, plus a brace and compression stockings if anything was stitched or reconstructed.
Carpal Tunnel Surgery
Genuinely just 2 essentials, about $40 — and the 2024 AAOS guideline says something most pages get wrong: routine splinting after surgery isn't well-supported by evidence. The splint's real job is easing symptoms before surgery, not bracing you after it.
Broken Bone / Cast
Not a single-surgery hub — an evergreen cast guide that splits by location: crutches and a waterproof cover for a leg cast (about $55), just the cover for an arm (about $13–23 with a sling). Cast itch is answered with 4 free hospital-named tricks, not a gadget.
Hip Fracture Surgery (ORIF)
There's no time to shop before this one — surgery usually happens within 36 hours of the fall, and it's often a family member doing the shopping, not the patient. 6 essentials, about $225–250, and 80.3% of patients are discharged to a facility, not home.
Elbow Surgery
Two things to buy, one that's free — the rest depends which of 5 elbow surgeries you had. Total elbow replacement carries a permanent 5–10 lb lifting cap for life; the other four don't.
Spinal Cord Stimulator
A genuine two-stage surgery — a short trial, then, only if that works, the permanent implant — with different gear for each stage, and the Medicare rule (NCD 160.7) that makes the trial a condition of payment.
Abdominal & digestive
Belly-and-gut surgeries — beyond the inguinal/groin hernia hub above.
Hiatal Hernia Surgery
A different kind of recovery than most on this site — weeks of blended meals and sleeping elevated while your fundoplication heals, not a mobility-equipment list. 4 essentials, about $105–110.
Gallbladder Surgery
The honest list here is one item — a cold pack, about $21. Medicare's own policy calls a raised toilet seat noncovered by name, but covers a bedside commode with a doctor's order.
Colorectal Surgery & Ostomy
Two populations, one hub — 4 essentials if you have a new stoma, one more (an abdominal binder) either way. Medicare's coverage runs backwards from what you'd guess.
Appendectomy
There's no time to shop before an emergency appendectomy — this is the post-discharge list. 2 essentials, about $41, cover almost everyone; a third (an abdominal binder) only matters if your surgery was open, not laparoscopic.
Bariatric Surgery
6 essentials for gastric sleeve or gastric bypass — one hub for both, because the hospitals that publish these guides treat them as one staged recovery, not two.
Women's & newborn
Childbirth and gynecologic/breast recoveries.
C-Section
6 essentials for recovering while caring for a newborn — 5 of the 6 are FSA/HSA eligible without a doctor's note.
Vaginal Birth Recovery
5 essentials for what hospitals actually send new mothers home with — no incision, no surgery date, but real healing all the same. 4 of the 5 are FSA/HSA eligible without a doctor's note.
Mastectomy
5 essentials for mastectomy, lumpectomy, or reconstruction recovery — and the one hub here where Medicare actually covers the signature item (a real billing code, $59.59).
Lumpectomy
Genuinely just 2 essentials, about $31 — and yes, ice belongs on this list, the opposite of this site's own mastectomy hub's no-ice rule, per four independent hospital sources.
Everything else
Heart, eye, dental, cosmetic, and urologic recoveries.
Heart Surgery
5 essentials for open-heart or bypass recovery — plus the free hospital heart pillow you don't need to buy. Bending is allowed here; almost nothing else is.
LASIK
3 essentials, the thinnest hub on the site — Medicare has excluded LASIK from coverage since 1997, twice over, while the IRS names it by name as FSA/HSA eligible.
Facelift
The single most-repeated instruction across every source is technically free — elevate your head, ice water on a washcloth. 2 optional upgrades, about $50–55, for surgery Medicare and FSA/HSA both exclude by name.
Dental Implant
The first-few-days basket is the same 3 items as our wisdom-teeth checklist, stated honestly — what's different is a months-long healing wait, and CMS's own rulemaking naming a dental implant as what still isn't covered.
Prostatectomy
4 essentials for the catheter weeks — Medicare prices and pays for the catheter, both bags, and the strap, then names the incontinence pads it won't cover as "not prosthetic devices," in the same policy.
TURP Surgery
Most people need almost nothing — four independent hospital sources agree the catheter usually comes out in the hospital, not at home. A four-item conditional kit for the smaller group who are the exception.
Tonsillectomy
3 essentials, about $50–55 — chosen for whoever's doing the shopping, usually a parent. Hospitals genuinely disagree on straws (fine vs. bleeding-risk), shown side by side, plus an insurance frequency threshold (7 infections a year, or 5, or 3) most parents have never heard of.
Pacemaker / ICD Implant
The shortest checklist on the site — 1 essential, about $13. Unlike knee or hip replacement, this doesn't restrict your legs at all; you're walking the same day. The one thing worth buying: a seatbelt pillow, because the diagonal strap crosses right over the incision.
Thyroid Surgery
2 essentials, about $85, from seven hospital discharge sources — plus one symptom pattern five independent hospitals name identically (numbness or tingling in the fingers, face, or lips) as the reason to call your surgeon.
Cardiac Ablation
One product, about $21 — the thinnest checklist on the site alongside pacemaker/ICD. A groin-access procedure with a leg-and-lifting restriction, not the arm restriction pacemaker/ICD causes, plus a genuinely new 2026 Medicare billing-site change.
Septoplasty
2 essentials, about $53, from 9 hospital and government sources — plus the honest coverage line: it's function vs. appearance that decides coverage, not septoplasty vs. rhinoplasty.
Mohs Surgery
As little as $7, up to about $92 depending on your surgery site and timing — the real story is the wait, not the shopping: this runs in unpredictable multi-hour stages while a pathologist checks each layer of tissue removed.
Tummy Tuck
5 essentials, about $130–140 — plus an honest three-hospital disagreement on how long you'll actually wear the binder (2 weeks to 6+), and the panniculectomy coverage boundary that sits close by.