Convicted wife-killer Michelle Kosilek’s efforts to have the state pay for her sex-reassignment surgery received another boost yesterday when a federal board ruled Medicare can no longer automatically deny coverage requests for such procedures, her attorney said.

“I’m not sure if it will finally convince Massachusetts to allow her surgery, but it certainly supports what we’ve been saying all along, which is that the recommended treatment for Michelle Kosilek is a medically recognized, valid treatment,” said Joseph L. Sulman. “It’s not cosmetic. It’s not experimental. It’s necessary to treat people with this condition.”

Federal Judge Mark L. Wolf ruled in 2012 that the state must pay for Kosilek’s surgery. The Department of Correction appealed, and both parties are now awaiting a finding by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yesterday’s decision by a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board was based on the case of Denee Mallon, a 74-year-old transgender Army veteran whose request to have Medicare pay for her surgery was denied two years ago.

The board found there was no justification for a three-decade-old HHS rule excluding such surgeries from procedures Medicare covers.

“I think (the decision) will be life-altering for people who need medical care and have been denied it because of misunderstandings of the medical needs of transgender people,” said Jennifer Levi, the lawyer who argued the case and who directs the Transgender Rights Project of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston.

Kosilek, 64, who changed his name legally from Robert Kosilek, was convicted of killing his wife, Cheryl McCaul, in their Mansfield condominium in 1990.

Department of Correction spokesman Darren Duarte said: “We have to review the ruling before we can comment on it.”

But Renee M. Landers, a Suffolk University Law School professor who specializes in health law, said the HHS decision could be enough to make the court rule in Kosilek’s favor.

“The plaintiff will certainly cite it about what the state’s policy should be,” Landers said.