|
E-mail this page to a friend!
News About Medicare
Medicare Preventive Services Should Begin at Age 50
for Diabetes
Sixty million, nearly one-third of U.S. adults, are pre-diabetic.
June 8, 2006 Medicare has significantly improved
its service to senior citizens with the addition of "preventive care"
features aimed at better health for the beneficiary and long-term
savings for taxpayers. But, if the government wants to more effectively
achieve those goals, perhaps it should consider beginning some preventive
care programs at age 50, rather than at 65 especially for diabetes.
| |
Related Stories |
|
| |
Almost One-Third of Medicare Spending for
Chronically Ill Seniors is Unnecessary
Study sees need
of major overhaul in managing
chronic illness of elderly
May 16, 2006 - Staggering variations in how
hospitals care for chronically ill elderly patients indicate serious
problems with quality of care and point toward unnecessary spending by
Medicare. Lower utilization of acute care hospitals and physician visits
could actually lead to better results for patients and prolong the
solvency of the Medicare program, according to a new study by the Center
for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences (CECS) at Dartmouth Medical School.
Read more...
Medicare Cost to Pass Social Security in 2028, Part
A Trust Fund Broke in 2018
Higher cost in 2005
cuts fund's life by two years
May 1, 2006 - Medicare expenditures were $336
billion in 2005 and are expected to increase in future years at a faster
pace than either workers earnings or the economy overall and exceed the
cost of Social Security in 2028. By 2080 Medicare costs will be almost
twice that of Social Security. The data is in the annual Medicare
Trustees Report issued today, which also says the trust fund for
Medicare Part A will be exhausted in 2018, two years earlier that
projected last year, due to higher cost than estimated and
upward revisions of assumptions of utilization.
Read more...
Read more
on
News About Medicare |
|
Sixty million Americans, nearly one-third of the
U.S. adult population, are pre-diabetic. A study published in the June
issue of the journal Diabetes Care has found that it would be cost
effective for Medicare to pay for diabetes prevention at age 50 rather
than to deny prevention benefits until age 65, when many individuals
will have already developed the disease.
"Diabetes is growing with the increasing rate of
obesity and has reached epidemic proportions in this country," says
Ronald Ackermann, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of medicine at the
Indiana University School of Medicine and first author of the study.
"Prepaying benefits before the onset of diabetes
might prevent millions of individuals from developing the disease and
would prevent the very high future costs of treating the disease once it
occurs."
In 2002, a large clinical trial, known as the
Diabetes Prevention Program, determined diet and exercise sharply
reduced the chances that a person with pre-diabetes would develop
diabetes. This study did not address the issue of how diet and exercise
programs would be financed.
"Cost-sharing strategies to offer lifestyle
interventions to help individuals between the ages of 50 and 64 keep
their weight down and to develop realistic individualized exercise
programs would be a win-win situation for both pre-diabetic patients and
for the private and governmental funders of their health care," says Dr.
Ackermann.
Sharing the costs of efforts to help the huge
number of pre-diabetics in their 50s and early 60s alter their
lifestyles would not cost private insurance companies or Medicare more
than they would eventually have to pay for treatment for the large
number of pre-diabetics who will develop diabetes after age 65 if no
preventive treatment is supported.
It is not the norm in this country for private
insurance companies and the federal government to pay for preventive
treatments for a chronic disease. However, the new study by Dr.
Ackermann and colleagues concludes that if individuals with pre-diabetes
and their employers contribute only modest co-payments for a diabetes
prevention benefit, this would allow private health insurers and
Medicare to cover these programs, and the economic impact, as well as
the health and social implications of obesity and diabetes, would
decline.
More about study
Co-authors of the study, which was funded by the
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, are
David G. Marrero, Ph.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine;
Katherine A. Hicks, M.S. and Thomas J. Hoerger, Ph.D., of RTI
International; Stephen Sorensen, Ph.D., Ping Zhang Ph.D. and Michael M.
Engelgau, M.D., of the Centers for Disease Control; Robert E. Ratner,
M.D., of the MedStar Research Institute, and William H. Herman M.D.,
M.P.H., of the University of Michigan Health System.
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
