The White House released a new initiative to prevent diabetes through the Federal Medicare program, which would give the elderly for the old adults for diabetes prevention expenses.
The proposal is based on a pilot plan, developed and administered by the YMCA, which achieved that participants with high risk of developing the disease lost about 5% of their body weight.
In 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services gave the YMCA about 12 million dollars in 2011 to launch the program, which includes nutrition advice, physical exercises and lifestyle to the beneficiaries of Medicare.
At this time, prediabetic patients are not reimbursed when receiving medical care, explained to Fortune Mike Payne, head of Medical Affairs of Viath Health, the largest federal provider of diabetes prevention programs in the Medicare of the United States.
For the Secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Sylvia Burwell, the program "improves the quality of health care while reducing health care costs," he said at a press conference in Washington, DC.
One in three dollars of Medicare is spent on patients with diabetes, according to HHS and prevention effort saved about $ 2,650 per participant over 15 months.That is, savings was greater than the cost of the preventive program, they explained.
The proposal must go through a period of public debate, but does not need the approval of the Congress, so it is likely that it enters into force before Obama's presidency ends.
"Medicare coverage expansion for these programs based on verifiable results is a significant step towards reducing chronic diseases, in a way that improves life and reduces Medicare's expense," Lisel Loy Loy, Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center Prevention.
How do Medicare and Medicaid work in the US?
According to the centers for disease control and prevention, one in three adults in the United States has prediabetes, a condition determined by blood glucose levels that are higher than normal, but not high enough forA diagnosis of diabetes.
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that almost half of adults in that state have either diagnostic diabetes or high blood sugar levels that can lead to diabetes.
