A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: MAKE THE MOST OF MEDICARE/MEDICAID COVERAGE

With New Year’s Day just around the corner, many of us, and many of our older patients, are contemplating New Year’s resolutions. Odds are, a lot of us will resolve to take better care of our health. Surveys find health-related resolutions rank at the top of Americans’ lists New Year after New Year.

You can help your patients make good on those resolutions this year by helping them make the most of the preventive health services covered by Medicare and Medicaid. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently launched its “My Medicare. My Health.” campaign, to help beneficiaries do just that. Among other things, the campaign encourages healthcare professionals to urge beneficiaries to take advantage of preventive health benefits and Medicare prescription drug coverage. Open enrollment for 2007 prescription drug coverage, which began November 15, ends the last day of this month.

Medicare began offering preventive health benefits in 1981 and has been expanding the list of covered preventive services ever since. Covered services now include a “Welcome to Medicare” physical exam, adult immunizations, and cardiovascular disease and various cancer screenings. Abdominal aortic aneurysm screening will be covered starting next month.

Overall use of preventive services, however, is surprisingly low. Among others, flu shots remain an underutilized benefit, CMS reports. That’s particularly worrisome, since the flu kills an estimated 36,000 Americans yearly—and the majority of deaths are among older adults.

As part of CMS’ campaign to encourage the use of preventive services, the new Medicare handbook focuses on prevention. Beneficiaries can also call 1-800-MEDICARE or visit www.medicare.gov to find out whether they are up-to-date with preventive care.

To make finding the right prescription drug plan easier, CMS has launched a number of new online tools, as have other organizations. An updated, enhanced version of CMS’ “Medicare Prescription Drug Finder” is now available (visit www.medicare.gov, then click on “Compare Medicare Prescription Drug Plans”). So is CMS’ new “Medicare Options Compare”, which helps beneficiaries compare plans and learn about Medicare coverage and Medigap policies.

Beneficiaries can also apply for “Extra Help” with Medicare prescription drug plan costs more easily this year, by logging onto the National Council on Aging’s “BenefitsCheckUp” website (at https://www.benefitscheckup.org/). The site, recently updated to enable beneficiaries to apply for this assistance electronically, streamlines the application process.

For more information on preventive health benefits for your patients, visit www.cms.gov—and help them enjoy a happy, healthier new year.