will Medicare pay for removal of old silicone breast implants? They are 30 years old and am having hardness and pain.

Dear Grammy31,

The trouble with Medicare is there is no means to get precertification for a procedure. That is to say, the surgeon and patient take their chances when they do an operation because Medicare will not tell in advance whether its going to be covered or not.

Unfortunately, in my experience, these claims are consistently denied by Medicare as well as operations such as breast reduction and gynecomastia.

You should have a good understanding with your surgeon going into the case of what responsibilities you will have financially if or when Medicare disallows the procedure.

Best of luck,
Robert D. Wilcox, M.D.