What Medicare actually pays for after shoulder surgery

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

Short answer: almost nothing. None of the 68 Medicare durable medical equipment codes this site tracks apply to a sling, an ice wrap, an adaptive shirt, or a sleep wedge — this equipment isn't the lower-extremity or general-mobility DME that dataset covers. The one thing you genuinely don't pay for, the sling itself, isn't a Medicare story at all — it's simply handed to you by your hospital before you go home.

What does the hospital actually give you?

Just one thing, equipment-wise: the sling. OHSU Orthopaedics' own total shoulder patient guide states it directly:

A second institution, University of Washington Medicine's rotator cuff repair handout, independently confirms the same hand-off pattern — the sling comes from your surgical team, and you remove it yourself once home when it isn't needed. Neither hospital source frames the sling as a Medicare-billed item, and it isn't one: it was never a purchase, so there's no fee-schedule entry to check.

What does insurance typically handle, beyond equipment?

This site tracks durable medical equipment codes only — not the medical side of your care. In general terms, your insurance (Medicare or otherwise) typically covers the medical parts of shoulder-surgery recovery separately from equipment: the surgery itself, anesthesia, follow-up visits with your surgeon, and physical or occupational therapy sessions, all billed under medical benefits rather than DME. We don't track those codes or claim figures here — check your own plan's surgical and outpatient-therapy benefits for what applies to you specifically.

Why isn't shoulder equipment in Medicare's DME data at all?

It's a scope difference, not a gap CMS overlooked. A separate HCPCS "L-code" range exists for upper-extremity orthotics, including a surgeon-prescribed arm or shoulder brace — but that range sits outside the 68-code lower-extremity/mobility dataset this site tracks, the same "out of scope, not a data gap" situation the hip hub already documented for its own abduction-brace research. The comfort items on this checklist (sling pads, ice wraps, adaptive shirts, sleep wedges) sit outside both the L-code orthotics range and the 68-code DME set — they were never billed as durable medical equipment under any code, prescription or not.