If you itemize your deductions on Form 1040, you may deduct expenses you paid that year for medical and dental care for yourself, your spouse and your dependents. You may deduct only the amount of your total medical expenses that exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income or 7.5% if you or your spouse is 65 or older. Medical care expenses include payments for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or payments for treatments affecting any structure or function of the body.
Deductible medical expenses may include but are not limited to the following:
-Fees to doctors, dentists, surgeons, chiropractors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and nontraditional medical practitioners Payments for in-patient hospital care or nursing home services, including the cost of meals and lodging charged by the hospital or nursing home
-Acupuncture treatments or inpatient treatment at a center for alcohol or drug addiction, for participation in a smoking-cessation program and for drugs to alleviate nicotine withdrawal that require a prescription
-Participate in a weight-loss program for a specific disease or diseases diagnosed by a physician, including obesity, but not ordinarily payments for diet food items or the payment of health club dues
-Insulin and payments for drugs that require a prescription Payments made for admission and transportation to a medical conference relating to a chronic disease that you, your spouse or your dependents have (if the costs are primarily for and essential to necessitated medical care). However, you may not deduct the costs for meals and lodging while attending the medical conference
-False teeth, reading or prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses, hearing aids, crutches, wheelchairs, and for guide dogs for the blind or deaf.
-Transportation primarily for and essential to medical care that qualify as medical expenses, such as payments of the actual fare for a taxi, bus, train, ambulance, or for medical transportation by personal car, the amount of your actual out-of-pocket expenses such as for gas and oil, or the amount of the standard mileage rate for medical expenses, plus the cost of tolls and parking fees.
-Insurance premiums you paid for policies that cover medical care or for a qualified long-term care insurance policy covering qualified long-term care services.
-Medicine or drug that is a prescribed drug or is insulin (even if such drug is available without a prescription).
If you are self-employed and have a net profit for the year, you may be eligible for the self-employed health insurance deduction. This is an adjustment to income rather than an itemized deduction for premiums you paid on a health insurance policy covering medical care.
You can only include the medical expenses you paid during the year and you can only use the expenses once on the return.
