Unused Medicare Benefits: What Your Parent Is Leaving on the Table (2026)

One of the most useful things an adult child can do is make sure a parent actually uses the benefits they already have. The numbers here are striking. In a Commonwealth Fund survey of Medicare Advantage enrollees, only about 42% had used their dental benefit, 41% their vision benefit, and just 7% their hearing benefit, even though most of those plans include a free annual exam. These aren't extras your parent has to buy; they're already part of the plan, quietly going to waste.

Why so much goes unused

It's rarely because people don't want the benefit. It's that no one tells them clearly what they have, the details are buried in a benefits booklet, the money expires on a schedule nobody tracks, or getting to an appointment is hard. That gap, 'you're owed this and don't know it', is exactly what a caregiver is well placed to close.

The extras worth checking on a Medicare Advantage plan

If your parent has Medicare Advantage, run down this list against their plan: dental (cleanings, sometimes major work), vision (exam plus a glasses allowance), hearing (exam and often a large hearing-aid allowance, the most underused of all at 7%), the over-the-counter (OTC) card for pharmacy items, a fitness benefit like SilverSneakers gym access, transportation to medical appointments, and on some plans a meal benefit after a hospital stay. Each one your parent isn't using is money already paid for on their behalf.

The benefits hiding on Original Medicare

If your parent has Original Medicare instead, the 'unused benefits' are different but often bigger in dollars. Many people miss $0 preventive services Medicare fully covers, the yearly wellness visit, flu and other vaccines, and a range of screenings. And the largest missed benefits of all are the cost-savings programs: Extra Help for prescriptions (worth about $5,700 a year) and the Medicare Savings Programs that pay the $202.90/month Part B premium. Huge numbers of eligible people never claim these simply because they assume they earn too much.

A 15-minute caregiver audit

You can catch most of this in one sitting. First, find out whether your parent has Original Medicare or Medicare Advantage and get the plan name. If it's Medicare Advantage, pull up the plan's 'Summary of Benefits' and check off which extras above they've actually used this year, then schedule the easy ones (a dental cleaning, a hearing exam) and spend any expiring OTC balance. Whichever type of Medicare they have, run a free two-minute benefits check for Extra Help and the Savings Programs, since those are the biggest dollars and the most commonly missed.