 Then, of course, it might be worthwhile to be adding up our medical expenses to make sure that we're getting our maximum benefit. Once we start thinking about what kind of medical expenses qualify, you can imagine people getting quite creative, and they have gotten quite creative in the past, and you can get into the weeds in this area. And this is one of those areas where you could look at the law and say there's not enough definition in some areas, and then you might have even have to go down to court cases and revenue rulings and whatnot. Because you can imagine a doctor saying that basically anything is deductible. You can get a doctor to say anything. After COVID and watching Fauci out there calling himself science incarnate and whatnot, you start to lose faith that they're actually following the science, right? So I mean, like if a doctor said you could deduct a vacation to Hawaii for medical expenses, is that going to be deductible? You could probably say no, that's not going to be deductible. But if I bought a jacuzzi or a sauna for my home, is that going to be deductible? Because my doctor said it was going to be something. You can imagine all kinds of these kind of scenarios that are somewhat in the gray area, and then you might have to get into more detail about them. But certain things are not in the gray area and are pretty straightforward. So to the extent you weren't reimbursed in calculating your total medical expenses, you can include what you paid for. Now, obviously, if you were reimbursed for the medical expenses, then you didn't actually pay them, and you would think then that they would not be something that would be deductible. Insurance premiums for medical and dental care, including premiums for qualified long-term care insurance contracts as defined in publication 502, but see limit on long-term care premiums that you can deduct later. Reduce the insurance premiums by any self-employed health insurance deduction you claim on Schedule 1. So obviously, the big cost for many people is the insurance, and so can we deduct the insurance? Now, if you can deduct the insurance, sometimes you end up with this double-dipping kind of problem. And this is another kind of issue that comes up in part because we're kind of veering away from that standard thing that you would think would naturally be deductible if you have an income tax system. In other words, normally if you have an income tax system, you're going to deduct the things that you needed to expend in order to generate the revenue, as we see kind of, for example, on a Schedule C, where we deduct the expenses that we needed to generate the revenue. All the stuff on the Schedule A, such as medical expenses, notice that's personal. It's not part of a business expense generally for medical expenses. So when we deduct the medical expenses, it's kind of the rationale is something like we want to incentivize people to take care of themselves or nudge people to do this or that. And you end up running into situations oftentimes where the tax code has come up with multiple areas where you might be able to deduct something. So it used to be that insurance was tied to employment, right? So it might be something that was deduct that was done through your place of employment as an employee for a sole proprietor then it might be possible for you to deduct the insurance possibly not on a Schedule C, but rather on the Schedule 1. And if you can deduct the insurance there, you can't also deduct it, you would think on the Schedule A because that would be what we would call like double dipping to deductions for the same cost in that case. So there's that, that would come up if someone was possibly self-employed, for example, and that was their primary income and they weren't receiving health insurance through a W-2 employee, for example. So you can't include insurance premiums paid by making a pre-tax reduction to your employee compensation because these amounts are already excluded from your income by not being included box one of forms W-2. So if you're a W-2 employee and you get insured through your employer and it's something that is not then taxable, it will already have been taken care of. You've already got a tax benefit because the employer will have reduced box one of the W-2 form, which is your income line and therefore it's already been taken care of and because the box one will be reduced, box one of your income line might therefore be different than box three and five of your W-2, which are all wages, depending on whether it be subject to social security and Medicare tax. So you have to be careful of that. Is it already excluded from income on the W-2? If so, then if you deducted it again, you would basically be double dipping. If you are a retired public safety officer, you can't include any premiums you paid to the extent they were paid for with a tax-free distribution from your retirement plan. Prescription medicines or insulin. So there's the other big one. You got the prescription medications that might be a deductible item clearly, which you might have to basically keep track of of course to see how much was paid for those items. Then we have acupuncturists, chiropractors, dentists, eye doctors, medical doctors, occupational therapists, osteoprothic doctors, physical therapists, pediatrists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysis. So notice many of these categories, like for example, acupuncturists and chiropractors were somewhat new into the field. So there have been questions in the past in terms of how broad a range of professionals would be qualified in this area. And again, this comes up, this ends up making a whole issue because now it becomes important to define certain things as medical care. And it also could be important to define certain things as diseases and whatnot. Not because that would be the best definition possibly of certain things, but because there's tax consequences related to it, which again to me is kind of a detrimental outcome. Because again, I don't want things to be defined by whether it be best for deductibility on a tax code and whatnot. I'd rather it be defined on other objective matters. But in the case medical examinations, x-ray and laboratory services and insulin treatment for for doctor ordered diagnostic tests, such as full body scan, pregnancy test or blood sugar test kit, nursing help, including your share of the employment tax paid. If you paid someone to do both nursing and housework, you can deduct only the cost of the nursing help. So if they're doing, you know, the nursing work, then you might be paying them directly and they're also doing housekeeper work than obviously the housekeeper is personal information and the medical is also personal, but possibly deductible because of the schedule a deduction. Hospital care, including meals and lodging, clinic costs and lab fees, qualified long term care services, which you can see publication 5024. The supplemental part of medical insurance, Medicare Part B, and then the premiums you pay for Medicare Part D insurance, a program to stop smoking and for prescription medicines to alleviate nicotine withdrawal. Again, this is another one that's kind of on those fringe cases where you deducting this kind of stuff, which is like, is that really, I'm not sure that's kind of like a habit, like a disease, is it a disease, addiction disease, is obesity a disease, or is it, you know, should it be categorized, I don't know. So a weight loss program as treatment for a specific disease, including obesity. So here's the one where they included obesity as a disease. Is that a good thing to do if they did it just for taxes? Because if you tell someone they have a disease that could make their mental state a little bit different than telling them that they have a condition that is, that, you know, they have more control over maybe if it's not categorized as a disease, but there you go. Medical treatment at a center for drug or alcohol addiction. Medical aids such as eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and guide dogs, including the cost of maintaining them. I want a dog, I don't think it could qualify, searching to improve defective vision, surgery to improve defective vision, such as laser eye surgery and a radial keratin, I say I need that laser eye surgery.