Allowable Medical Expenses that may claimed on your Health Spending Account
The following is a comprehensive (but not complete) list of medical expenses that may be claimed.
Refer to CRA Bulletin IT-531 Qualifying Medical Expenses for additional detail relating to allowable expenses.
Professional Services
- Acupuncturist (qualified medical practitioner)
- Chiropodist
- Chiropractor
- Christian Science Practitioner
- Dentist
- Dental Mechanic
- Dermatologist
- Gynecologist
- Naturopaths
- Neurologist
- Obstetrician
- Optician
- Optometrist
- Orthopedist
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- Osteopath
- Pediatrician
- Physician
- Physiotherapist
- Plastic Surgeon
- Podiatrist
- Practical Nurse (medical services only)
- Psychiatrist
- Psychoanalyst
- Psychologist
- Registered Nurse
- Speech Therapist (pathological or audiological impediments only)
- Surgeon
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Dental
- Dental Checkups
- Dental X-Rays
- Cleaning, polishing, oral hygiene instruction
- Flouride treatments
- Filling Teeth including root canal
- Oral Surgery
- Extracting Teeth
- Gum Treatment
- Major dental procedures (bridge, implant, inlay, onlay)
- Straightening Teeth
- Dentures
Hospital
- Anesthetist
- Oxygen Masks / Tent
- Vaccines
- Hospital Bills
- Out-Patient Services
- X-Ray Technician
Medicines
- Cost of Prescriptions
- Oxygen
- Vitamin B12 - for pernicious anemia
- Insulin or Substitutes
- Liver Extract - injectable for pernicious anemia
- Tapes or tablets for sugar content tests by diabetics, if the procedure has been required by a physician
- Any medicine or drug purchased by you, your spouse or a dependant, as prescribed by a medical practitioner or dentist and as recorded by a licensed pharmacist
Treatments
- Blood Transfusion
- Diathermy
- Electric Shock Treatments
- Healing Services
- Hydrotherapy
- Injections
- Insulin Treatments
- Nursing (by registered nurse)
- Pre-Natal; Post-Natal Treatments
- Psychotherapy
- Radium Therapy
- Speech Pathology or Audiology
- Transplants: for 1988 and later years, on behalf of a patient who requires a bone marrow or organ transplant, the reasonable costs of locating a compatible donor and arranging for the transplant, including legal fees and insurance premiums, and reasonable travelling, board and lodging expenses for the donor and a companion as well as the recipient and a companion incurred in respect of the transplant.
- Ultra-Violet Ray Treatments
- Whirlpool Baths
- X-Ray Treatments
Durable Equipment
Note that all items prescribed by regulation, as indicated by an asterisk (*) below, must be prescribed by a medical practitioner, whereas those items not so indicated need only be prescribed if the statute so requires.
- Artificial Eye
- Brace for a Limb
- Eye glasses or Contact Lens (prescribed)
- Heart Monitor or Pacing Devices*
- Ileostomy Pads
- Needles and Syringes*
- Oxygen Tent and Equipment
- Spinal Brace
- Wheelchair
- Artificial kidney machine; including reasonable installation, home alteration, and operating costs.
- Blood sugar level measuring devices for diabetics.
- Catheters, catheter trays, tubing, or other products required by persons who are incontinent by virtue of illness, injury, or affliction.
- Diapers, disposable briefs, catheters, catheter trays, tubing, or other products required by a person who is incontinent by virtue of illness, injury, or affliction.
- Infusion pumps, including disposable peripherals, used in the treatment of diabetes.
- Wigs made for individuals who have suffered abnormal hair loss owing to disease, accident or medical treatment.*
- Any apparatus or material - where payment is made directly to a doctor, dentist, nurse or hospital.
- Any device, including replacement parts, designed exclusively for use by an individual who is suffering from a chronic respiratory ailment or a sever chronic immune system disregulation.*
- Any power-operated lifts or transportation equipment designed exclusively for use by or for a disabled individual to allow the individual access to different areas of a building or to assist the individual to gain access to a vehicle (this includes track electrical systems to move quadriplegics about the home example from bed to bath).
- Reasonable expenses relating to renovations or alterations to a dwelling of a patient who lacks normal physical development or has a severe and prolonged mobility impairment (one that may be expected to last 12 months or more,) to enable the patient to gain access to, or be mobile or functional within the dwelling.
- Any device designed to assist a person to enter or leave a bathtub or shower, or to get on or off a toilet.*
- A hospital bed including any prescribed attachments.*
- Exercise quipment prescribed by a physician for treatment or recovery from an illness or injury.
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- Any device designed to assist an individual in walking where the individual has a mobility impairment.*
- Devices designed exclusively to enable an individual with a mobility impairment to operate a vehicle.*
- An external breast prosthesis that is required because of a mastectomy.*
- Artificial Limb
- Colostomy Pads
- Crutches
- Iron Lung
- Hospital Bed if Required in Home*
- Laryngeal Speaking Aid
- Orthopedic Shoes, Boots and orthotic inserts*
- Rocking Bed for Polio Victim
- Truss for Hernia
- Any device to aide the hearing of a deaf person including bone-conduction telephone receivers, extra-loud audible signals and devices to permit volume adjustment of telephone equipment above normal levels.
- Television closed caption decoders for the deaf.*
- Any equipment and accessory that enables a deaf or mute person to make and receive telephone calls including visual ringing indicators, acoustic couplers, teletypewriters. Amounts paid in providing additional equipment and accessories to others in order to make telephone communication possible with those other persons are also allowed as medical expenses.*
- Electronic speech synthesizers that enable mute individuals to communicate using a portable keyboard.*
- Optical scanners or similar devices designed to be used by a blind individual to enable him to read print.*
- Synthetic speech systems, Braille printers and large print-on-screen devices that enable blind persons to utilize computers.*
- Monitors which can be attached to babies identified as being prone to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and which sound an alarm when the baby stops breathing.*
- Electronic or computerized environmental control systems designed exclusively for the use of an individual with severe and prolonged mobility restrictions (this is to include electronic control systems for quadriplegics).*
- Extremity pumps or elastic support hose designed exclusively to reduce swelling cause by lymph edema.*
- Inductive coupling osteogenesis stimulator for treating non-union fractures or aiding in bone fusion.*
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Miscellaneous Allowable Expenses
- Ambulance Charges - To and From Hospital
- Canadian Red Cross - Home Maker Service
- Prescription Birth Control Pills
- Victorian Order of Nurses - Home Care
- Transportation costs - to or from hospital, clinic or doctor's office to obtain services not otherwise available nearer home.
- Premium paid to a non-government medical or hospital care plan (e.g. Blue Cross, Manulife Flexcare, Sun Life Affinity)
- Reasonable expenses relating to rehabilitative therapy, including training in lip reading and sign language, if incurred to adjust for the patient's loss of hearing or speech.
- Hydraulic wheelchair lifts for a vehicle that has been prescribed by a qualified medical practitioner.
- The cost of an animal specially trained to assist a person who is blind, deaf, or severely impaired in the use of arms or legs. In addition to the cost of the animal, its care and maintenance (including food and veterinary care) are eligible expenses, as are travel expenses to a training facility to learn how to handle the animal, and, it full-time attendance at the training facility is required, reasonable board and lodging incurred in the full-time attendance.
Ineligible Expenses
- Provincial Health Care Premiums
- Toothpaste
- Birth control devices - non-prescription.
- Wigs - unless made to order for individuals who have suffered abnormal hair loss owning to disease, medical treatment, or accident.
- Maternity clothes
- Antiseptic diaper services
- Funeral, cremation or burials, cemetery plot, monument, mausoleum.
- Illegal operations, treatment or drugs illegally procured.
- Cost of special food or beverages - unless they have no nutritional value to you and are taken only to treat or alleviate an illness.
- Health programs offered by resort hotels, health clubs, or gyms.
- Athletic club expenses to keep physically fit.
- Payments to a municipality where the municipality employed a doctor to provide medical services to the residents of the municipality.
- Medical services for which you are reimbursed or are entitled to be reimbursed.
- Air conditioners, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, or air cleaners.
- Scales for weighing food.
