Tab F of My Notebook is a place for a log and receipts for tax deductions. You can claim an itemized deduction for qualified medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. You can also take tax-free health savings account (HSA), health care flexible spending account (FSA) or health reimbursement account (HRA) withdrawals to cover qualified medical expenses. However, qualified medical expenses don’t include those for things that are merely beneficial to your general health. While before your diagnosis you may never have qualified for medical expense tax deductions, your cancer journey may include expenses that make it worthwhile for you to file for these deductions. Make it easy by knowing what you can claim and keep the receipts as they occur in Tab F.
Here are just a few expenses you may have paid that you may be able to deduct as medical expenses:
- Doctor visits and dental exams, eye exams and physical exams are qualified medical expenses because they provide a diagnosis
- Co-pays for labs, doctor visits and drugs
- Radiology and X-rays
- Cancer treatments like Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy
- In home care
- Hospital stays
- Therapy
- Nutritional counseling
- Reconstructive surgery
- Wigs if purchased for chemotherapy-induced hair loss
- Prescription medication
- Cost for transportation essential to medical care, including lodging at $50 a day
- Premium payments for private medical plan
- Acupuncture
- Ambulance services
- Medical supplies
- Special equipment installed in a home or home improvements, if their main purpose is medical care for you, your spouse, or your dependent. The cost of permanent improvements that increase the value of your property may be partly included as a medical expense. The cost of the improvement is reduced by the increase in the value of your property. The difference is a medical expense.
- Gym membership costs are qualified medical expenses only if the gym is for the sole purpose of 1) affecting a structure/function of the body, such as part of a prescribed plan for physical therapy to treat an injury or 2) treating a specific disease diagnosed by a physician such as obesity, hypertension or heart disease. However, the cost of an exercise program that improves general health, such as swimming or dancing, isn’t eligible even if it’s recommended by a doctor.
- Food or beverages purchased for weight loss or other health reasons are qualified medical expenses only if the food or beverages: 1) don’t satisfy normal nutritional needs, 2) alleviate or treat an illness and 3) are needed according to a physician. Even if all these requirements are met, the amount that can be treated as a qualified medical expense is limited to the amount by which the cost of the food or beverages exceeds the cost of products that satisfy normal nutritional needs.
- The costs of nutritional supplements are qualified if they’re recommended as treatment for a specific medical condition diagnosed by a physician.
- Smoking cessation program costs are qualified medical expenses because they treat the disease of tobacco use disorder. Similarly, the amounts paid for programs to treat drug and alcohol abuse are qualified medical expenses because they treat the diseases of substance use and alcohol use disorders.
- The cost of psychotherapy for treatment of a disease is a qualified medical expense. For example, the cost of therapy to treat a diagnosed mental illness is eligible, but the cost of marital counseling isn’t.
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