Medicare Expands Coverage for Tobacco Cessation

Medicare Expands Coverage for Tobacco Cessation

The Obama administration recently announced that it was expanding Medicare to cover more seniors hoping to break their smoking and other tobacco habits.

Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature death in the United States, according to an April 2009 study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

While each of these diseases is impacted by lifestyle choices," suggests Alan Weinstock, insurance broker with www.MedicareSupplementPlans.com, "smoking is the only one which can adversely affect non-smokers as well."

In fact, secondhand smoke causes an estimated 50,000 deaths each year mostly from lung cancer and coronary heart disease. And according to Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, "More Medicare beneficiaries want to quit their tobacco use."

Medicare Covered Tobacco-Related Counseling

Under previous rules, Medicare covered tobacco-related counseling only for beneficiaries already suffering from a tobacco-related disease. Now Medicare will cover as many as two tobacco-cessation counseling tries each year, including as many as four individual sessions per attempt. The purpose is to shift the nation's healthcare system toward prevention, rather than simply treating diseases after they've developed.

Of the 46 million Americans estimated to smoke, about 4.5 million are over 65 years of age, HHS says, and nearly another 1 million more smokers younger than 65 are eligible for Medicare benefits. Tobacco-related diseases are expected to cost Medicare approximately $800 billion between 1995 and 2015.

This change affects only Medicare Parts A and B hospital care and physician services. Medicare Part D already covers smoking-cessation drugs for all beneficiaries.

November is National Lung Cancer Awareness Month

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women. Cigarette smoking is directly responsible for 87% of lung cancer cases in the United States annually. However, not all lung cancer is a direct result of smoking.

Supported by the American Lung Association, National Lung Cancer Awareness Month is meant to create awareness about the realities of lung cancer through education and advocacy, to help reduce the stigma and to create a sense of urgency that will bring lung cancer to the forefront.

In the fight against lung cancer, the Lung Association currently supports a variety of research that is currently being done including research to develop a non-invasive blood test to detect early lung cancer, design a lung cancer vaccine to induce immune response and help prevent people with COPD from getting lung cancer.

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