Paying to Prevent Diabetes is Cost Effective
From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
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.
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.
"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.
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