Medicare for Therapy and Mental Health: What's Covered in 2026

If you’re considering therapy but worried that Medicare won’t cover it, we have good news: your plan will pay most of the bill. Even better, Medicare places no limit on the number of outpatient sessions you can receive. As long as your provider is enrolled in Medicare and your care is medically necessary, you and your therapist can decide how long your treatment continues.

That's just one way Medicare's mental health coverage is broader than you might think. The program covers individual and group therapy, psychiatric evaluations, medication management, substance use treatment, and more — and changes within the past few years have expanded both who can provide your care and where you can receive it. We'll walk through what's covered, what it costs, and the rules worth knowing before your first session.

Recent updates to Medicare mental health coverage

If you last looked into this a few years ago, two changes stand out.

You can see a wider range of therapists

For decades, licensed marriage and family therapists and mental health counselors couldn't bill Medicare at all. That changed on January 1, 2024, when both professions became eligible to enroll, adding more than 400,000 additional providers.

Medicare now covers mental health services from eight types of providers:

• Psychiatrists or other doctors
• Clinical psychologists
• Clinical social workers
• Clinical nurse specialists
• Nurse practitioners
• Physician assistants
• Marriage and family therapists
• Mental health counselors

Online therapy continues post-Covid

Pandemic-era telehealth rules have been extended several times, most recently in February 2026. Under current law, you can receive mental health services via telehealth from anywhere in the U.S., including your home, through December 31, 2007. Audio-only sessions count, too — if you can't or would rather not use video, a phone session is covered when your provider documents the reason.

Mental health services covered by Medicare

The most confusing thing about Medicare is that mental health benefits are spread across different parts of the program. Each part covers a different setting or type of care.

Outpatient therapy and counseling (covered by Medicare Part B)

This is the coverage you’re probably interested in when researching Medicare for therapy. Medicare Part B covers a wide range of outpatient mental health services (outpatient = not in a hospital), including:

• Individual psychotherapy
• Group psychotherapy
• Psychiatric evaluations
• Medication management
• Diagnostic testing
• Family / couples counseling (but only if the main purpose is to support your individual treatment)

Part B also covers:

• One depression screening per year
• Safety planning for those at risk of suicide or overdose
• Follow-up calls after an emergency department visit for a behavioral health crisis
• Certain FDA-cleared digital mental health treatment devices

What you'll pay: In 2026, the Part B annual deductible is $283. After you meet your deductible, you typically pay 20% of the session cost, and Medicare picks up the rest. For a session with an average rate of $150, that’s about $30 per visit after the Part B deductible is met.

Hospital mental health care (covered by Medicare Part A)

Medicare Part A covers mental health care when you're admitted as a hospital inpatient, whether at a general hospital or a psychiatric hospital. Coverage includes a semi-private room, meals, nursing, medications, and other services related to your treatment.

What you'll pay: After meeting the $1,736 deductible for each benefit period, days 1–60 cost you nothing. Days 61–90 carry a $434 daily coinsurance, and days 91–150 cost $868 per day while you use your 60 lifetime reserve days.

Mental health medications (covered by Medicare Part D)

Medicare Part D is Medicare's prescription drug benefit, and it covers most of the medications you'd pick up at the pharmacy. The plans themselves come from private insurance companies, and how you get one depends on which version of Medicare you have.

If you have Original Medicare — Part A for hospital care and Part B for outpatient care, with the federal government paying your claims directly — you'd add a stand-alone Part D plan for drug coverage.

Medicare Advantage Plans and mental health coverage

An alternative to “Original” Medicare is a Medicare Advantage plan, sometimes called Medicare Part C.

These are private plans that serve as an alternative way to get your Medicare benefits: instead of the government paying for your care directly, a private insurer administers your Part A and Part B coverage, and most plans bundle in Part D drug coverage as well.

You're still in Medicare and your mental health benefits include everything described above — the plan just delivers your benefits as one package, often with extras like dental or vision. Medicare Advantage plans require you to choose a provider from their network and pay set copays which can be different for each plan.

Medigap policies and mental health coverage

If you choose Original Medicare, you may want to consider a Medigap policy — supplemental insurance that helps pay the out-of-pocket costs, like deductibles and coinsurance. It works alongside your Medicare coverage rather than changing it: Medicare pays its share of an approved service first, then your Medigap policy pays some or all of what's left.

This can be helpful when it comes to paying for mental health care. Original Medicare has no annual cap on out-of-pocket spending, and its set 20% coinsurance applies to every therapy session — for someone in weekly therapy, that can add up. A Medigap policy that covers your Part B coinsurance can reduce that per-session cost to little or nothing. All Medigap plans also cover your Part A hospital coinsurance, which would apply during an inpatient psychiatric stay, and some help with the Part A deductible as well.

Two things Medigap doesn't do: it doesn't expand what Medicare covers — it only helps pay for services Medicare already approves — and it can't be paired with a Medicare Advantage plan.

Additional Medicare mental health benefits

Beyond standard therapy, hospital stays, and mental health prescriptions, Medicare's behavioral health benefits include:

Substance use treatment

Medicare covers opioid use disorder treatment through enrolled Opioid Treatment Programs, including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, along with counseling, toxicology testing, and intake assessments. Treatment for alcohol use disorder is covered as well.

Intensive outpatient options

For care that's more structured than weekly therapy but doesn't require an overnight stay, Part B covers partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient program services.

Knowing what’s covered is the first step

Medicare covers more mental health services than you might realize, including unlimited outpatient therapy sessions, an expanded pool of eligible clinicians, telehealth from home through at least the end of 2027, plus medication coverage.

Now that you understand your benefits and what you'll pay, you can move on to the next step: finding a therapist who accepts Medicare and who understands how to support your unique needs.