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Does Medicare Cover the New Alzheimer's Blood Test? South Dakota's 2026 Coverage Reality
A simple blood draw can now help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Whether Medicare will pay for it is a completely separate question — and right now, the honest answer is: not under any rule CMS has written yet.
The bottom line
- CMS has no National Coverage Determination for the billing codes used for the new Alzheimer's blood test, and Noridian — South Dakota's own Medicare contractor, Jurisdiction JF — has no Local Coverage Determination for them either, per a Medicare Advantage payer's coverage table compiled from CMS's own listings, current as of October 17, 2025.
- The FDA cleared the test, the Lumipulse G pTau217/β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio, on May 16, 2025, for adults 55 and older who already have signs or symptoms of cognitive decline — not as a stand-alone or screening test, per the FDA's own press release.
- 16,500 South Dakotans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease — 10.5% of the state's 65-and-older population — per the Alzheimer's Association's 2026 South Dakota facts sheet.
- A bill in Congress, the ASAP Act (H.R. 6130 / S. 3267), would create Medicare coverage for tests like this one — but only for tests furnished on or after January 1, 2028, and only if it passes. It has not passed as of this guide.
- This is a different test and a different coverage question than the PET scan or spinal fluid test Medicare already pays for when confirming eligibility for the Alzheimer's drugs Leqembi and Kisunla.
If your mother keeps asking the same question twice, or your father's checkbook suddenly doesn't balance, and you've read that a simple blood test can now help diagnose Alzheimer's disease — the honest, current answer on whether Medicare will pay for it is no, not under any rule CMS has written as of today. That's not a guess and it isn't permanent. It's the state of a brand-new diagnostic test moving through a slow federal coverage process, and the gap between "the FDA cleared it" and "Medicare pays for it" is exactly where a family can end up with a bill nobody warned them about.
Every figure in this guide was fetched directly from its primary source this session, October 17, 2026: the FDA's own press release on the test's clearance, the actual bill text of the ASAP Act on Congress.gov, Medicare.gov's own pages on yearly wellness visits and anti-amyloid drug coverage, and the Alzheimer's Association's 2026 South Dakota facts sheet. The specific Medicare billing-code coverage status comes from a Medicare Advantage payer's own policy document, which compiles and cites CMS's National and Local Coverage Determination listings directly — we found exactly one source stating this plainly and say so below, and we link CMS's own live database so you can check it yourself.
Why this question is suddenly everywhere
For most of the last two decades, confirming amyloid plaque — the hallmark brain finding behind an Alzheimer's diagnosis — meant one of two things: an expensive PET scan involving a radioactive tracer, or a spinal tap to draw cerebrospinal fluid. Both work. Both are also exactly the kind of procedure an anxious 70-something puts off for months, and exactly the kind of procedure an adult child has to talk their parent into scheduling.
That changed on May 16, 2025, when the FDA cleared the first blood test for aiding an Alzheimer's diagnosis. A lab that can already draw blood for a cholesterol panel can now draw blood that helps answer the amyloid question too. Labcorp launched it nationwide by August 2025. news coverage around National Alzheimer's awareness events through 2026 has kept pushing the story back into the headlines, and Congress has a bill sitting in committee that would, eventually, make Medicare pay for it as a screening test. None of that coverage spends much time on the one question that matters most to a South Dakota family sitting across from a doctor who's just mentioned it: will Medicare actually pay for this, today, for my parent, in Sioux Falls?
That's the question this guide answers plainly, with the actual billing codes, the actual coverage database entries, and the actual bill text behind the "it's pending" headlines.
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What the new blood test actually is
The Lumipulse G pTau217/β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio measures two proteins in a blood draw and calculates a ratio that correlates with whether amyloid plaques — the hallmark brain finding in Alzheimer's disease — are present. The FDA cleared it through the agency's 510(k) pathway, finding it "substantially equivalent" to an earlier version of the same test that works on cerebrospinal fluid instead of blood, per the FDA's own press release.
The FDA reviewed data from a multi-center clinical study of 499 individual plasma samples, all from adults who were already cognitively impaired. Here's exactly what that study found, in the agency's own words: among people with a positive blood test result, 91.7% also had amyloid plaques confirmed by a PET scan or CSF test. Among people with a negative result, 97.3% had a confirmed-negative PET scan or CSF test. Fewer than 20% of the 499 samples came back indeterminate — not a clean positive or negative either way.
Two details in the FDA's own clearance matter more than the accuracy numbers, because they define exactly who this test is for and what it's allowed to replace:
Age 55 and older, with symptoms
The clearance is specifically for adults 55+ who are already "exhibiting signs and symptoms" of cognitive decline — not a general-population screening test, and not cleared for someone who feels fine today.
Not a stand-alone diagnosis
The FDA states plainly that results "must be interpreted in conjunction with other patient clinical information" and that the test "is not intended as a screening or stand-alone diagnostic test." A positive result doesn't replace a doctor's full workup.
Reduces, doesn't eliminate, PET scans
The FDA frames the test as reducing "the need for a PET scan," not replacing it outright — your provider still decides what additional testing a result calls for, especially if the result is indeterminate.
Source: FDA — FDA Clears First Blood Test Used in Diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease, May 16, 2025.
One more figure from the FDA's own announcement is worth sitting with, because it's the reason this clearance got national attention in the first place. FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., said in the agency's own release that "10% of people aged 65 and older have Alzheimer's," and that "by 2050 that number is expected to double." Nationally, more than 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease today, a figure the FDA cites alongside its projection that the number will climb toward nearly 13 million.
The real answer: no rule, no reliable payment
No — not under any National or Local Coverage Determination that exists today, and that includes South Dakota's own Medicare contractor. This is the part most coverage of the blood test skips entirely, because it requires looking past the FDA clearance and into a much less glamorous federal database: the CMS Medicare Coverage Database.
We found this stated clearly in one place: a Medicare Advantage payer's own medical policy document — specifically, a policy titled "Evaluation of Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease," effective October 17, 2025 — which exists precisely because providers kept asking payers whether this new test is covered. That policy compiles, code by code, exactly what CMS's own National and Local Coverage Determination listings say. We fetched and read that document directly this session; we did not find a second, independently worded source restating the same code-by-code status, so we're saying so plainly rather than implying broader corroboration that doesn't exist. CMS's own live Medicare Coverage Database is the authoritative source, and you — or your doctor's billing office — can check it directly at any time.
| Billing code | What it bills | National Coverage Determination | Local Coverage Determination |
|---|---|---|---|
| 82233 | Beta-amyloid, 1-40 (Abeta 40) | None | None (Noridian JF) |
| 82234 | Beta-amyloid, 1-42 (Abeta 42) | None | None (Noridian JF) |
| 84999* | Unlisted chemistry procedure — the code used for the Lumipulse plasma ratio itself | None | None (Noridian JF) |
| 84393 | Tau, phosphorylated (e.g. pTau 181, pTau 217) | None | None (Noridian JF) |
Source: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — Medicare Advantage Medical Policy: Evaluation of Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease (eff. 10/17/2025), citing CMS's own National and Local Coverage Determination listings. Verify the current status directly at CMS — Medicare Coverage Database (live search). * 84999 is a generic "unlisted chemistry procedure" code; the Lumipulse plasma ratio test is billed under it specifically because no dedicated code with an established Medicare payment rate exists yet for this exact assay.
Read that table carefully, because the word doing the real work is "None" — not "denied," not "excluded," just none. CMS hasn't written a national rule saying this test is covered, and it hasn't written one saying it isn't, either. That absence is the whole problem. Noridian Healthcare Solutions is the Medicare Administrative Contractor for Jurisdiction JF, which includes South Dakota, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming — and per the same compiled coverage table, Noridian has issued no Local Coverage Determination for any of the codes above either.
"Unlisted" is not the same as "not covered" — but it isn't a promise, either
Code 84999, the one labs use specifically for the Lumipulse plasma ratio test, is a generic catch-all for lab procedures that don't yet have their own dedicated code with a set Medicare payment rate. An unlisted code can still get paid — but the amount, and whether it's paid at all, gets worked out claim by claim rather than guaranteed in advance the way a standard, coded, covered service is. Ask before the blood draw, not after the bill.
Why "FDA-cleared" isn't "Medicare-covered"
These are two entirely separate federal processes, run by two separate agencies, answering two entirely different questions — and conflating them is the single most common and most expensive misunderstanding in this story. The FDA's job is to decide whether a medical device or test is safe and effective enough to sell. CMS's job is to decide whether Medicare will pay for it. A test can clear the first hurdle completely and sit at the second one for years.
CMS runs a specific review process for exactly this kind of molecular diagnostic test, called the MolDX Program, administered by a contractor (Palmetto GBA) and implemented across several Medicare Administrative Contractors — Noridian among them. Every test reviewed under MolDX lands in one of three buckets in a registry CMS maintains, per the compiled description in the same payer policy document:
Default: not covered
- A test that hasn't completed its required technical assessment review is treated, by default, as not medically reasonable or necessary for Medicare — until that review finishes
- FDA clearance and the existence of a billing code do not, by themselves, establish Medicare coverage
- This is where the new blood test sits today, per the current coverage table
Covered — with conditions
- The test has passed a clinical and analytical validity review and is deemed medically reasonable and necessary
- Coverage is still conditional: it must meet any applicable NCD/LCD, and the patient must show real signs or symptoms
- This is the bar the new blood test would need to clear before routine Medicare payment becomes reliable
Source: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — Medicare Advantage Medical Policy: Evaluation of Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease (eff. 10/17/2025), describing the CMS MolDX Program and its DEX Diagnostic Exchange registry.
One sentence from that policy document is worth repeating plainly, because it's the single most useful idea in this entire guide: FDA approval for a specific indication, or the mere existence of a CPT or HCPCS code, is not by itself sufficient for Medicare to treat a test as medically reasonable and necessary. The presence of a code — even a payment amount attached to a code — doesn't automatically mean coverage. If a service is ultimately found not reasonable and necessary, it's treated as not covered, full stop, regardless of what the FDA cleared.
Two different Alzheimer's coverage tracks — don't confuse them
Medicare already pays, under real conditions, for amyloid confirmation tied to Alzheimer's drug treatment — but through a PET scan or a spinal fluid test, not the new blood test. This is the second most common mix-up we hear, and it's an understandable one, because both situations involve the word "amyloid" and both involve a diagnostic test before treatment.
If your parent's doctor is considering the anti-amyloid drugs Leqembi (lecanemab) or Kisunla (donanemab), Medicare Part B can cover the drug itself under National Coverage Determination 200.3, finalized April 7, 2022. But getting there requires your provider to confirm amyloid pathology first — per Medicare.gov's own coverage page for these drugs, that confirmation "must" happen before treatment starts, "typically" through an amyloid PET scan or a cerebrospinal fluid test. Medicare.gov's page for these drugs does not mention a blood test anywhere. We cover that entire pathway, the registry requirement, and the real 2026 drug pricing in a separate, dedicated guide: does Medicare cover Leqembi and Kisunla?
| Confirmation method | How it's done | Medicare's typical path | What it confirms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood draw (Lumipulse) | Simple blood draw at a lab or clinic | No National or Local Coverage Determination; often billed as an unlisted code; payment is not guaranteed | pTau217 / amyloid ratio, correlated with plaque presence |
| Amyloid PET scan | Brain imaging after an injected tracer | Part B diagnostic imaging; used as the standard confirmation step before anti-amyloid drug treatment under NCD 200.3 | Direct visualization of amyloid plaques |
| Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) test | Lumbar puncture (spinal tap) | Part B diagnostic lab service; the other standard confirmation step under NCD 200.3 | Amyloid and tau protein levels in spinal fluid |
Source: Medicare.gov — Monoclonal antibodies for treating early Alzheimer's disease; CMS — National Coverage Determination 200.3 (Monoclonal Antibodies Directed Against Amyloid); Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — Medicare Advantage Medical Policy: Evaluation of Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease (eff. 10/17/2025).
So if a doctor is weighing Leqembi or Kisunla for your parent, the amyloid confirmation step they'll actually use already has a working Medicare path — it just isn't the new blood test. If a doctor instead wants to run the new blood test purely to help figure out a diagnosis, with no drug treatment decision riding on it yet, that's the track with no coverage determination behind it at all, today.
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What it costs if Medicare says no
We looked for a single, dated, verifiable self-pay price for this specific blood test from a major lab and could not find one consistent enough to print here — published estimates for Alzheimer's biomarker blood tests we found ranged widely across sources, with no single figure confirmed directly from a lab's own current price list. Rather than hand you a number we can't stand behind, here's what we can tell you plainly: without a completed coverage determination, this test can be billed to you directly, in full, the same way any uncovered service would be — and because it's billed under an unlisted or not-yet-determined code, there's no fixed Medicare-allowed amount to anchor what "too much" would even mean.
That uncertainty is itself the cost worth planning around. A $283 Part B deductible and a 20% coinsurance on a clearly covered diagnostic test is predictable; a full, unanchored self-pay bill on an unlisted code is not. The practical move, covered in the next section, is getting that number in writing before the blood draw — not after the bill.
The ASAP Act: what's pending in Congress
A bipartisan bill sitting in committee would close this exact gap — but not until 2028 at the earliest, and only if it becomes law. The Alzheimer's Screening and Prevention Act of 2025, known as the ASAP Act, is H.R. 6130 in the House and S. 3267 in the Senate. Representative Vern Buchanan introduced the House version on November 19, 2025, with Representative Paul Tonko, and it was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means, per the bill's own text on Congress.gov.
We read the bill's actual text, not a summary of it. Here's precisely what it would do: it amends the Social Security Act to add a new Medicare benefit category for an "Alzheimer's disease and related dementias early detection screening test" — defined as a test cleared, classified, or approved by the FDA that measures a genomic sequencing blood or blood product marker, or an equivalent biomarker test, furnished "on or after January 1, 2028." The bill's structure uses CMS's existing evidence-based coverage process rather than mandating automatic coverage the moment it's signed — meaning even after enactment, a coverage determination process would likely still follow, similar to what happened with the anti-amyloid drugs.
The bill has real bipartisan interest behind it: Representative Buchanan's own House office said the ASAP Act had "officially secured over 100 bipartisan cosponsors" as of May 21, 2026. Interest isn't enactment, though, and nothing in federal law changes for a South Dakota family until a bill like this is actually signed. Until then, treat January 1, 2028 as the earliest realistic date, not an expected one.
The terms worth knowing
A few pieces of federal-coverage vocabulary show up constantly in a story like this one, and they're almost never defined in the news coverage that mentions them. Here's what each one actually means, plainly:
National Coverage Determination
A nationwide rule CMS writes saying whether, and under what conditions, Medicare pays for a specific service everywhere in the country. No NCD means no national rule exists yet, either way.
Local Coverage Determination
A regional coverage rule written by your area's own Medicare Administrative Contractor — Noridian, for South Dakota — used to fill gaps where no national rule exists. No LCD means your regional contractor hasn't written one either.
The MolDX Program
A CMS review process, run through contractor Palmetto GBA and used by several Medicare Administrative Contractors including Noridian, built specifically to evaluate whether a molecular diagnostic test like this one is clinically valid and medically necessary before Medicare treats it as routinely payable.
One more worth naming because it explains why the Leqembi/Kisunla pathway already works smoothly while the blood test's doesn't: Coverage with Evidence Development, the framework behind NCD 200.3. Instead of a flat yes-or-no, CMS pays for the anti-amyloid drugs while requiring the prescribing clinician to feed outcome data back into a CMS-approved registry — a deliberate, built-in way for CMS to keep watching how a new treatment performs in the real world without closing the door on it. A similar formal coverage framework for the new blood test, specifically, doesn't yet exist.
The South Dakota numbers behind this
This isn't an abstract federal-policy story for the Siouxland area. 16,500 South Dakotans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease today — 10.5% of the state's entire 65-and-older population — per the Alzheimer's Association's own 2026 South Dakota facts sheet. That same sheet counts 29,000 unpaid South Dakota caregivers, contributing 33 million hours of unpaid care valued at $910 million. South Dakota carries the 2nd-highest Alzheimer's death rate in the United States, with 505 deaths from the disease recorded in 2024 — a 182.1% increase in Alzheimer's deaths in the state since 2000, making it the state's 4th-leading cause of death overall.
Minnehaha County — Sioux Falls — carries 39,532 Medicare beneficiaries for 2026, per CMS's own county enrollment data. At the statewide 10.5% Alzheimer's prevalence rate among those 65 and older, that's thousands of local families weighing exactly the question this guide answers, whether or not the blood test ever comes up by name in the exam room.
Source: Alzheimer's Association — 2026 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, South Dakota; CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment by County (2026), via this site's own county data.
What to actually do, step by step
These are steps a family can take on their own, without waiting on Congress or on us:
- Start with the free option. Your parent's yearly Medicare Wellness visit already includes a cognitive assessment at no extra cost, with no Part B deductible, when the provider accepts assignment — per Medicare.gov. If your parent hasn't had that visit this year, that's the lowest-risk, zero-cost place to raise a concern before anything involves a specialty blood test. We cover exactly what that visit does and doesn't include in our Annual Wellness Visit billing guide.
- If a doctor raises the blood test specifically, ask two direct questions before the blood draw: which billing code will this be submitted under, and what happens, in dollars, if Medicare denies the claim. A clinic that's run this test before should be able to answer both.
- Ask in writing if the answer is vague. A dated note or portal message documenting what you were told about coverage is useful later if a bill arrives that doesn't match what you expected.
- If a drug decision — not just a diagnosis — is on the table, ask specifically whether an amyloid PET scan or a CSF test, not the blood test, is the route your provider plans to use, since that's the pathway with an actual working Medicare coverage framework behind it today.
- If a claim for the blood test is denied, you can appeal it through Medicare's standard process — we walk through every level and deadline in our Medicare appeal guide.
- If your parent is already showing real symptoms, not just a one-off, our separate guide to Medicare's dementia care benefits and the free GUIDE Model program covers the no-cost care-coordination support available once a diagnosis is further along.
What to keep as you go
The name of the billing code quoted to you, any written estimate of your out-of-pocket responsibility, and the date of the conversation. None of this is required before a blood draw — but if a bill later doesn't match what you were told, a dated record does more than a strong memory of the conversation.
How a local advisor helps with this
We're not a lab, and we don't order diagnostic tests — that stays between your parent and their doctor. Where a conversation with us tends to help is the part right before that: understanding, in plain terms, what Medicare does and doesn't have a coverage rule for yet, so a family isn't surprised by a bill for something nobody explained was uncertain in the first place. That's the same groundwork we do year-round on drug costs, network questions, claims that come back denied, and comparing the actual Medicare Advantage plans available in South Dakota if a diagnosis changes what your parent needs from their coverage.
Big Sioux Benefits is a licensed independent insurance agency based in Sioux Falls. We don't work for CMS or for any single carrier — carriers pay us, not you, so the conversation costs nothing. We do not offer every plan available in your area; any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options.
What to watch
- The ASAP Act's progress in committee. Over 100 bipartisan cosponsors, as of May 21, 2026, is a real signal of interest, but it's still a bill, not a law — watch for an actual committee vote or floor action, not just cosponsor counts.
- Whether CMS opens a formal National Coverage Analysis for this specific blood test, independent of the pending legislation — CMS can move on its own coverage process without waiting on Congress.
- Whether the test gets its own dedicated billing code with an established Medicare payment rate, replacing the current unlisted-code workaround — that alone would be a meaningful signal, short of full coverage.
- If a drug decision is involved, keep the blood test and the PET scan/CSF pathway separate in every conversation with your parent's care team — conflating them is the single most common, and most expensive, mix-up in this story.
- This year's enrollment window runs October 15 through December 7, 2026, for coverage starting January 1, 2027, per Medicare.gov — a reasonable moment to also double-check what your parent's current plan's Evidence of Coverage says about diagnostic lab testing generally, unlisted codes included.
How we know all this: Big Sioux Benefits runs every article through a data desk that cross-references the FDA's own press releases, CMS's National and Local Coverage Determination listings, Congress's own bill text, and the Alzheimer's Association's published state data — built by Strategic AI Architects. Every figure on this page was fetched from its primary source on October 17, 2026 and carries the date or period it covers. We found a single source stating the specific Medicare billing-code coverage status and say so plainly above, with a direct link to CMS's own live database so you or your doctor's office can verify it yourselves. This is education, not medical or legal advice; whether a specific test or claim is covered can turn on details specific to your situation, so confirm your own next step with your doctor, Medicare.gov, or a licensed agent. We take no payment from any carrier, lab, or drug maker to feature a plan or a test.
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Frequently asked questions
Does Medicare cover the new Alzheimer's blood test?
Not under any national rule as of this writing. CMS has no National Coverage Determination for the billing codes used for this test, and Noridian Healthcare Solutions — the Medicare Administrative Contractor for South Dakota, Jurisdiction JF — has no Local Coverage Determination for them either, per a Medicare Advantage payer's own compiled coverage table citing CMS's own listings, current as of October 17, 2025. Some labs bill it under an "unlisted" procedure code, which means payment, if any, is worked out claim by claim rather than guaranteed in advance. You can check CMS's live Medicare Coverage Database yourself at any time.
What is the Lumipulse blood test, and how accurate is it?
The Lumipulse G pTau217/β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio is a blood test the FDA cleared on May 16, 2025, for adults 55 and older who already have signs or symptoms of cognitive decline. It measures two proteins in blood plasma and calculates a ratio correlated with amyloid plaques in the brain. In the FDA's own 499-sample clinical study, 91.7% of people with a positive result had amyloid plaques confirmed by PET scan or spinal fluid testing, and 97.3% of people with a negative result had a confirmed-negative scan or spinal fluid result. Just under 20% of results came back indeterminate.
Will Medicare pay for a blood test to screen my healthy parent for Alzheimer's risk before any symptoms show up?
No. The FDA's own clearance limits this test to adults already "exhibiting signs and symptoms" of cognitive decline — it isn't cleared as a screening test for someone with no symptoms, and Medicare has no benefit category for pre-symptomatic Alzheimer's screening today. That's exactly the gap the pending ASAP Act in Congress is written to close, and only for tests furnished on or after January 1, 2028, if the bill passes.
My parent already has memory symptoms and their doctor ordered this blood test. Will Medicare still deny it?
It might, and there's no way to guarantee otherwise in advance. Because no National or Local Coverage Determination exists for the billing codes involved, a claim can be processed under CMS's MolDX molecular-diagnostics review program, where a test without a completed technical assessment is, by CMS's own default rule, treated as not medically reasonable or necessary until that review is finished. In plain terms: being ordered by a real doctor for a symptomatic patient doesn't by itself guarantee Medicare will pay. Ask the ordering office, in writing if possible, what it will cost you if Medicare denies the claim before the blood draw happens.
Is this the same test required for the Alzheimer's drugs Leqembi and Kisunla?
No, and this is the mix-up we hear most. Medicare's coverage path for the anti-amyloid drugs Leqembi and Kisunla runs through National Coverage Determination 200.3, which requires your provider to confirm amyloid pathology, typically with an amyloid PET scan or a cerebrospinal fluid test — not the new plasma blood test. Medicare.gov's own coverage page for these drugs doesn't mention a blood test at all. We cover that drug-coverage pathway in full in our separate guide to Leqembi and Kisunla coverage.
What is the ASAP Act, and when would it take effect?
The Alzheimer's Screening and Prevention Act of 2025 (H.R. 6130 in the House, S. 3267 in the Senate) would add a new Medicare benefit category for FDA-cleared "Alzheimer's disease and related dementias early detection screening tests," including blood-based tests. Representative Vern Buchanan introduced it on November 19, 2025, per the bill's own text on Congress.gov. As written, coverage would apply only to tests furnished on or after January 1, 2028. It has not passed either chamber as of this guide.
What can Medicare check for memory loss at no extra cost right now?
Your yearly Medicare "Wellness" visit already includes a cognitive assessment the provider performs to look for signs of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, per Medicare.gov. It's covered in full with no Part B deductible when your provider accepts assignment. If that screening raises a concern, Medicare separately covers a more detailed cognitive assessment and care-planning visit — a reasonable, no-extra-cost first stop before anyone orders a blood test that may not be covered at all.
What should I do if my parent gets a surprise bill for this test?
First, check whether the claim was billed under one of the unlisted or not-yet-determined codes described in this guide — that alone explains most denials. You can appeal a Part B denial through Medicare's standard appeals process, and we've written a full, separate guide to that process. If the ordering clinic didn't disclose in advance that the test might not be covered, that's worth raising directly with the clinic's billing office, since a documented discussion beforehand is the best way to avoid this exact situation the next time around.