Medicare Could Save Lives, Dollars by Providing
Seniors Nicotine Patches, Hotline
Nobody has paid attention to the elderly but older
people can benefit from quitting, even if they have smoked for decades
Aug.
18, 2008 - Medicare could possibly save the lives of many senior
citizens and save the government some money in health care costs by
providing nicotine patches and a telephone hotline to seniors who want
to quit smoking.
Nearly 20 percent of seniors who tried that
approach managed to quit smoking for a year, according to a study
designed to gauge how much smoking-cessation efforts will cost Medicare.
From a public health perspective, it works, said
study lead author Geoffrey Joyce, a senior economist with RAND, which
provides research services to the government.
Most antismoking efforts focus on younger people.
Nobody has really paid attention to the elderly, Joyce said.
However, older people can benefit from quitting,
even if they have smoked for decades.
According to a 1986 study, a senior who smokes 20
or more cigarettes a day and quits at age 65 could expect to add two to
three years to his or her life.
Joyce said the question for Medicare is this: Is it
cost-effective to help seniors quit smoking? To find an answer, Medicare
commissioned the new study, which appears in the latest online issue of
the journal Health Services Research.
The researchers examined the experiences of 7,354
seniors who enrolled in smoking cessation programs in seven states
between 2002 and 2003.
They provided all participants with a self-help kit
and divided them into four groups.
● The members of the first group received a brochure about smoking
cessation.
● Another group received reimbursement for four brief counseling
sessions with their doctors.
● The third group received counseling plus a nicotine patch or the
smoking-cessation drug bupropion.
● The final group could use a smoking-cessation hotline and a
nicotine patch.
Nineteen percent of those in the fourth group quit
smoking and did not pick up cigarettes again for the next year. The
one-year quit rates for the other three groups were 10 percent, 14
percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Joyce said the difference between the 10 percent
quit rate in the brochure group and the 19 percent quit rate in the
hotline and patch group was significant: You can double quit rates with
a telephone quitline and a free patch.
Helen Ann Halpin, director of the Center for Health
and Public Policy Studies at the University of California at Berkeley,
said the study results suggest that older smokers are motivated to quit
and that quitlines and pharmacotherapy greatly increase the odds of
successfully quitting.
She added that all 50 states now have a quitline
for smokers of all ages.
As for Medicares need for cost-effective care,
what we dont know is how much money this really saves if saving money
is your goal, Joyce said.
Still, it seems clear that if you just look at it
from a strict budget perspective, its not going to save Medicare a lot
one way or another.
Below are More
Links to Archived Health Stories on Smoking
Aug.
18, 2008 - Medicare could possibly save the lives of many senior
citizens and save the government some money in health care costs by
providing nicotine patches and a telephone hotline to seniors who want
to quit smoking.