Does Medicare cover crutches after a broken bone?

Yes — the one real exception. A standard pair of underarm crutches (HCPCS E0114) is covered at $57.17-$88.73 with a prescription. Medicare paid 44,541 claims for this code nationally in 2024. Everything else on this checklist — cast covers, sling pads, wedge pillows, ice wraps — has no HCPCS code at all.

Is a cast or the equipment around it FSA or HSA eligible?

Yes, and this is the bigger story for most readers. IRS Publication 502 names crutches directly as an FSA/HSA-eligible expense and names "bandages" as an eligible medical supply. Its general medical-expenses definition — costs of diagnosis, cure, mitigation, or treatment — covers the ER or urgent-care visit where the cast was applied without needing a cast-specific line item.

Why don’t cast covers, sling pads, or wedge pillows have a Medicare code?

Because they were never assigned one to begin with — a different situation from an item like a shower chair, which has a code but pays $0 by rule under a statutory exclusion. These items simply sit outside Medicare’s DME fee schedule entirely. FSA/HSA reimbursement, not Medicare, is the real financing path for them.

Does insurance cover a broken-bone cast?

Reviewed by Erin Rose — healthcare price-transparency analyst. Last checked August 29, 2026. Part of the full broken-bone-cast checklist. No affiliate links on this page — every link below goes to a primary source or another page on this site.

For most of what's on this checklist, the real answer runs through your FSA or HSA, not an insurance claim — except crutches, which are the one item Medicare or insurance can actually help pay for directly. The cast or splint itself never shows up in Medicare's equipment data at all, and that's not a gap in this site's dataset — it's genuinely billed a different way.

The fact

Casts and splints are billed clinically — a CPT procedure code, part of the ER or urgent-care visit itself — not through Medicare's DME fee schedule. Searching this site's own 68-code coverage_status.json dataset for "cast," "splint," or "fracture" returns zero hits.

That's correct, not a gap: applying a cast or splint is a clinical service, not a piece of durable medical equipment. The one genuine exception on this whole checklist is crutches, covered below.

Source: data/coverage_status.json (68 HCPCS codes)

The one exception: crutches

If a broken leg means you need crutches, that's the one item on this checklist where Medicare's rules actually help.

“Crutches underarm, other than wood, adjustable or fixed, pair, with pads, tips and handgrips.”

— HCPCS E0114, CMS DMEPOS Fee Schedule, July 2026 (DME26-C)

Crutches Medicare coverage, DY2024 national claims
Item	HCPCS	Medicare fee	Your 20% share	DY2024 claims
Crutches, underarm, non-wood, pair, with pads/tips/handgrips	E0114	$57.17–$88.73	$11.43–$17.75	44,541

Policy citation: Canes and Crutches (A52459). A prescription (a Written Order Prior to Delivery, on file before the item is handed over) is required, the same rule that applies across every DME category Medicare covers.

Everything else: no code exists

Waterproof cast covers, sling comfort pads, wedge/leg-elevation pillows, and cast-specific ice wraps all return zero hits in this site's own 68-code dataset — not a code that pays $0 by rule (like a shower chair), but no billing code assigned to the category at all. Buy them retail; there's no prescription path and no coinsurance math to run for these.

FSA and HSA: the broader, more useful rule for most readers

This is the bigger story for most people on this checklist, especially parents managing a child's cast — Medicare simply doesn't apply to most of this hub's readers, but IRS Publication 502's medical-expenses definition does.

The IRS rule

Crutches — You can include in medical expenses the amount you pay to buy or rent crutches.

Named explicitly, by category, in IRS Publication 502 — the strongest, most directly on-point FSA/HSA citation available for this checklist. Publication 502's medical-expense list is the same IRC §213(d) definition that governs what FSA and HSA funds can reimburse tax-free (cross-referenced in IRS Publication 969).

Source: IRS Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses

“Bandages — You can include in medical expenses the cost of medical supplies such as bandages.”

— IRS Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses

That's a real, named, adjacent category to the cast padding and dressing supplies used to treat a fracture — not this site inferring eligibility by analogy. And Publication 502's general definition covers the visit itself, without needing a cast-specific line item:

“Medical expenses are the costs of diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease and for the purpose of affecting any part or function of the body. These expenses include payments for legal medical services rendered by physicians, surgeons, dentists, and other medical practitioners. They include the costs of equipment, supplies, and diagnostic devices needed for these purposes.”

— IRS Publication 502, “What Are Medical Expenses?”

An ER or urgent-care visit for a fracture is squarely "treatment... for the purpose of affecting a part of the body," so it qualifies without a cast-specific line item in Publication 502. Save every receipt — the visit itself, the crutches, and the medical supplies used to treat the injury are all reimbursable this way.

What this rule does — and doesn't — confirm

Publication 502 confirms the ER/urgent-care visit, crutches, and general medical supplies (bandages) are FSA/HSA eligible. It does not automatically extend to every product on this hub's checklist by name — this research pass did not run a per-item marketplace eligibility check (an FSAstore.com listing check) for the waterproof cast cover, sling pad, or wedge pillow specifically. Those items likely qualify under the same general medical-supplies logic, but we're stating that as a reasonable inference, not a confirmed per-item fact — check your own FSA/HSA administrator or a marketplace like FSAstore.com before assuming a specific product qualifies.

This page explains what Medicare's published rules and IRS Publication 502 say — it isn't a coverage determination for your specific claim or plan. FSA and HSA plan rules vary by employer and administrator; confirm your own plan's eligibility list before you buy. A Medicare Advantage plan can set different rules than the Original Medicare figures cited here.

Go deeper

The full recovery checklist

The 3 essentials, the arm-vs-leg fork, and the honest cast-cover disagreement — plus the exact products behind this page.

How to shower with a cast

The DIY methods, the waterproof cover, and the pediatric-vs-adult disagreement — cited.

Sources

CMS DMEPOS Fee Schedule, July 2026 release (DME26-C) — crutches fee range
CMS HCPCS Level II quarterly file, July 2026 release — code descriptions
CMS DMEPOS utilization by Geography and Service, DY2024 — national claim counts; live data.cms.gov API
Canes and Crutches – DME MAC Policy Article (A52459), LCD L33733
IRS Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses — crutches and bandages named explicitly; general medical-expenses definition; fetched live 2026-07-30
IRS Publication 969, Health Savings Accounts and Other Tax-Favored Health Plans — cross-referenced for how Pub. 502’s medical-expense definition governs FSA/HSA reimbursement
data/coverage_status.json (68 HCPCS codes) — confirmed zero hits for "cast," "splint," or "fracture" — the basis for the headline fact above
VerifiedCareData dataset.json (CC-BY-4.0) — every coverage fact above in one machine-readable endpoint