Most power wheelchair denials aren’t about you. They’re about what got written down.
Medicare publishes what the doctor’s note has to say before it will pay for a power wheelchair or a scooter. The list is public, it is specific, and it is the same list every time. Nobody hands it to you.
A denial letter reads as a judgement about you. Most of the time it is a judgement about a document — a sentence the note did not contain, a date that fell outside a window, a signature from the wrong person. Those are fixable, and they are fixable in advance.
One page written for the office: what the coverage policy asks them to put in the note and on the order, quoted, with the citation under each block. Hand it across the desk, read the address down the phone, or email it.
Here is one of the requirements most often found missing when a power mobility device (PMD) claim is audited. The marker in the margin — F2F, for the face-to-face visit — is the vocabulary your doctor’s office and Medicare’s auditors already use.
The face-to-face visit has to fall in the six months before the order date
The face-to-face visit — F2F in the paperwork — is an appointment specifically about how you get around at home. It has to happen in the six months before the date written on the order. Not after it, and not longer than six months before it. Check both dates yourself: the date on the visit note, and the date on the order.
An out-of-window face-to-face is one of the most common audit findings on PMD claims.
There are thirty-one requirements like that one. Each carries the letter the policy gives it, the section it comes from, what it means for you, and the consequence recorded against it. Learning to say “we got denied at C” is worth more in a phone call than anything else on this site.
Two places people get stuck
“I need a doctor who’ll actually do this.”
A power mobility order is not a prescription written on the way out of a visit about something else. It takes a documented mobility exam, and the practitioner who does that exam has to be the one who signs the order. Offices that have been burned by denials stop offering it, and they rarely say that on the phone unless you ask.
Three questions sort it out in one call.
“I have a doctor, but we’re stuck or I got denied.”
Then the work is on the record rather than on the referral. Go into the appointment able to answer every question the note has to answer — or, if a denial has already arrived, find the requirement the letter is pointing at and read what the policy actually says about it.
What this site is
Wheelchair Doc reads Medicare’s power mobility coverage policy — Local Coverage Determination L33789, plus the wheelchair options policy L33792 — and sets out each requirement in plain English next to the section it comes from.
It decides nothing. It never says whether you qualify or do not qualify, because that is a clinical and payer decision made by people who have examined you and read your file. What it can tell you is what has to be written down, and who has to write it.
Nothing you type here leaves your browser. There is no account, no form that posts anywhere, and no server to receive an answer. What we do and do not collect.
Where to go from here
- What Medicare covers — the cane, walker, manual wheelchair, scooter, power chair ladder, and what separates the chair groups.
- Get ready for your appointment — eleven plain questions, and a sheet you can print and take with you.
- Why claims get denied — the reasons that actually appear, each one cited.
- For my doctor’s office — one page you can hand across the desk.
Where this comes from
Based on Medicare Local Coverage Determination L33789 — Power Mobility Devices, revision effective . Coverage policy is revised periodically. Confirm current requirements against the CMS Medicare Coverage Database before relying on this. This page is information, not medical or legal advice, and does not determine whether you qualify for anything.