The Medicare Blog

Get your prostate checked

Have you ever put off doing a task or getting a test and later wished you’d just gotten it over with? Now’s the time to talk with your doctor about whether you should get screened for prostate cancer. It’s the most common cancer in men, second only to lung cancer in the number of cancer deaths. The potential benefit of prostate cancer screening is early detection of cancer, which may make treatment more effective.

If you’re a man 50 or over, Medicare covers a digital rectal exam and Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test once every 12 months. Generally, you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount for the digital rectal exam after the yearly Part B deductible. You pay nothing for the PSA test.

Not sure if you should get screened? You’re at a higher risk for getting prostate cancer if you’re a man 50 or older, are African-American, or have a father, brother, or son who has had prostate cancer.

June is Men’s Health Month, a perfect time for you (and the men in your life) to take the steps to live a safer, healthier life. Visit the Centers for Disease Control for more information on men’s health and prostate cancer.

Ready to quit tobacco?

Are you or a loved one hooked on tobacco? Join the millions who’ve found a good reason to give it up—tobacco use is the second leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for 1 in every 10 adult deaths.

If you’re ready to quit, we can help. Part B covers free counseling sessions as a preventive service to help you quit smoking—you pay nothing if your doctor accepts Medicare’s payment.

If you’ve already been diagnosed with an illness caused or made worse by tobacco use or you take a medicine affected by tobacco, you can continue to get up to 8 face-to-face counseling visits every 12 months. You pay your Part B deductible, and 20% of the Medicare-approved amount. If you get counseling in a hospital outpatient setting, you also pay the hospital a copayment.

Make May 31—World “No Tobacco” Day—your starting point to kick the habit. Visit the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute to learn more about tobacco use and how you can overcome it.

Also, watch our video about the World Health Organization’s World No Tobacco Day campaign and how Medicare supports it.

National Women’s Health Week: The Dangers of Using Tobacco Products

Protect yourself from Hepatitis B

Are you at risk for getting Hepatitis B? Hepatitis B is a serious disease caused by a virus that attacks the liver. Approximately 2,000–4,000 people die every year from Hepatitis B-related liver disease.

The Hepatitis B virus spreads through contact with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. People can also get infected by coming in contact with a contami­nated object, where the virus can live for up to 7 days. Hepatitis B can range from being a mild illness, lasting a few weeks (acute), to a serious long-term illness (chronic) that can lead to liver disease or liver cancer.

The best way to prevent Hepatitis B is by getting the Hepatitis B vaccine, which is usually given as 3 shots over a 6-month period. You need to get all 3 shots for complete protection.

Medicare covers a series of shots for free if you’re at medium or high risk for Hepatitis B. Your risk increases if you have hemophilia (a rare bleeding disorder in which the blood doesn’t clot normally), End-Stage Renal Disease, or certain other conditions. You may also be at a higher risk if you live with someone who has Hepatitis B or if you’re a healthcare worker and have frequent contact with blood or body fluids. Ask your doctor if these shots are right for you.

May is Hepatitis Awareness month. To find out more about preventing and treating Hepatitis B, visit the Centers for Disease Control.

Also, watch our short YouTube video about Medicare’s efforts to prevent and treat hepatitis.

Fighting Fraud and Making Medicare Stronger

Crosspost from The White House Blog

Fighting Medicare fraud has long been a top priority for President Obama. Today, we are releasing a new infographic that describes how the Affordable Care Act – the new health care law – is helping the Obama Administration crack down on Medicare fraud and make Medicare stronger. The new infographic shows how the law increases penalties for criminals who commit fraud and provides new enforcement tools to stop fraud and save taxpayers money. 

We are committed to using these new tools to fight Medicare and other health care fraud, and we are getting results:  The Administration’s anti-fraud efforts recovered $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars last year, the second year recoveries hit this record-breaking level. Total recoveries over the last three years were $10.7 billion. Prosecutions are way up, too: the number of individuals charged with fraud increased from 797 in fiscal year 2008 to 1,430 in fiscal year 2011 – a more than 75 percent increase.

Just last week, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice announced “a nationwide takedown by Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in seven cities has resulted in charges against 107 individuals, including doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in Medicare fraud schemes involving approximately $452 million in false billing.”  And on Monday, the Departments announced that, as a part of their Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team initiative, they had resolved an investigation into a pharmaceutical company’s unlawful promotion of a prescription drug.  The Justice Department reported that, “the resolution – the second largest payment by a drug company – includes a criminal fine and forfeiture totaling $700 million and civil settlements with the federal government and the states totaling $800 million.” 

The infographic also shows how the Affordable Care Act is making Medicare stronger and providing new benefits. For example:

• 32.5 million people with Medicare received at least one free preventive service thanks to the health care law.
• People with Medicare who hit the prescription drug donut hole have already saved $3.4 billion on their prescription drugs.
• By 2021, the average person with Medicare will save nearly $4,200 thanks to the new health care law.

Click here to download a PDF of the graphic

You can learn more about these efforts and our work to implement the Affordable Care Act by visiting whitehouse.gov/healthreform.

Are your bones weak?

Do you know someone older who accidentally bumped their arm and ended up needing a sling? This type of injury could have been caused by osteoporosis. Ten million Americans have osteoporosis, and 34 million more have low bone mass. Osteoporosis means your bones have lost density or mass. As your bones become less dense, they become weaker.

People can’t feel their bones getting weaker. So, you may not know that you have osteoporosis until you break a bone. A person with osteoporosis can fracture a bone from a minor fall, or in serious cases, from a simple action such as a sneeze.

While people of all ages and backgrounds can develop osteoporosis, you’re at higher risk if you’re:

• White
• Older than 50
• Small in body size
• Eat a diet low in calcium
• Not physically active
• A post-menopausal woman

Medicare can help you prevent or detect osteoporosis at an early stage, when treatment works best. Talk to your doctor about getting a bone mass measurement–it may be free.

Also, take steps to keep your bones healthy. Get the calcium and vitamin D you need every day, and do regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises.

May is National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month—learn more about what puts you at risk for osteoporosis and how to prevent or treat it at the National Osteoporosis Foundation or the Centers for Disease Control. Also, watch our short YouTube video about Medicare’s efforts to curb osteoporosis.

Check Your Blood Pressure Regularly

Most of us have a friend or relative who has had high blood pressure at some point in their life—it affects the health of approximately 68 million Americans. High blood pressure increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, 2 of the 3 leading causes of death.

You may even have high blood pressure, so it’s important to get your blood pressure checked routinely. Medicare can help—we cover blood pressure screening as part of your “Welcome to Medicare” visit and your Yearly Wellness Visit—at no cost to you.

There are lots of ways you can check your blood pressure regularly, to keep on top of any changes between wellness visits. Check your local newspaper’s events calendar for local senior centers or libraries offering free blood pressure screenings. Visit health fairs that come to your community, where nurses may be on duty to check your blood pressure. Some supermarkets and drug stores offer a free automated machine next to their pharmacies, so why not use it the next time you pick up your prescriptions? You’ll feel good knowing you’re paying attention to an important part of your health.

May is National High Blood Pressure Education Month—learn more about how you can lower your blood pressure. Also, watch our short YouTube video about Medicare’s efforts to curb hypertension.

Patient survey results help you choose a home health agency

By Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator

The day is finally here – weeks after a fall that resulted in a broken hip, you’re ready to go home. You know you’re going to continue to need treatment and services at home, but where do you find a resource to help you through this next step on the road to recovery?

Now there’s an objective and meaningful way to compare other patients’ actual experiences with home health agencies and services—the Home Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS) Survey – and we’ve just released the first set of survey results on our Home Health Compare page.

People with Medicare that are getting home health services fill out this short survey that asks about the care they got from the home health agency in the last 2 months, how they’d rate the care, and how strongly they’d recommend that agency.

The initial survey results cover the period from October 2010 to September 2011. Most people who got home health care from Medicare-certified home health agencies during that time said they got the care they needed. In fact:

• 84% of patients gave their home health agency a rating of 9 or 10 on a scale from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest).
• 80% of patients said “yes, they would definitely recommend the home health agency to friends.”
• 87% of patients said their home health team provided care in a professional way.
• 86% said their home health team communicated well with them.
• 83% said their home health team discussed medicines, pain, and home safety.

By making the results public, we help keep home health agencies openly accountable and continuously working to improve their quality of care.

Let Medicare make it easier for you on your road to recovery.  We can help you make an informed decision when choosing a home health agency that best meets your needs—visit our Home Health Compare for the latest patient survey results.

Let’s be clear: plain writing works

Speaking and writing about the Medicare program in plain language isn’t just good practice—it’s the law. The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires us to make sure you’ll find our Web pages, booklets, letters and other materials clear and to the point.

You don’t have to look far to find examples of plain writing in our publications and on our Web site. Last July we released A Quick Look at Medicare, an easy-to-read 4-page brochure that sums up what Medicare does, what your choices are, and how you can contact us.

Also, we’ve recently redesigned the Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) to make it easier for you to find and understand your Medicare claims information.

The Affordable Care Act has also given us new opportunities to reach wider audiences with plain writing. For example, we wrote a plain language overview on the health care law for doctors and other health care providers that was mailed with the February edition of WebMD magazine to more than 175,000 doctor’s offices around the country.

We’ve made a lot of progress with plain writing during the past 15 months, but there’s still work to do. How do you think Medicare is doing using plain writing in our documents and Web pages? We need to know, so we can make our materials better. Give us feedback on our efforts and learn more about our ongoing commitment to plain writing by visiting the CMS Plain Language Web page.

Getting More Accurate Tobacco Information to Consumers

By: Margaret Hamburg, M.D. Crosspost from FDAVoice

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in our country. And this Administration is committed to implementing strategies that will stop our nation’s youth from starting to use tobacco and also help adults to quit. Today we’re taking two critical steps forward that will help reduce harm from tobacco and tobacco products.

Americans will soon have more information on the chemicals found in certain tobacco products, reflecting FDA’s commitment to inform and protect the public. For the first time ever, tobacco companies will be required to report the quantity of harmful and potentially harmful constituents – HPHCs – that are in their products to the FDA.

The detailed information that we receive will help FDA determine how best to make science-based decisions to reduce the terrible toll of tobacco-related disease and death. We also hope that by having to disclose this information, industry will voluntarily start to make their products substantially less addictive and harmful.

We are also forging new territory as we seek to ensure that tobacco companies provide accurate information and will not be able to mislead American consumers, especially by making it sound like certain products are less risky than they are. The landmark Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed by President Obama gives FDA the authority to ensure the claims for tobacco products marketed to reduce risk or exposure, such as “low tar” or “light,” are truthful and demonstrated by sound science.

So today we issued a draft guidance that provides direction for tobacco companies when they submit applications for modified risk tobacco products – MRTPs – tobacco products that are sold, distributed, or marketed to the public for use to reduce harm or the risk of tobacco-related disease.

We want to make sure consumers and the public have an accurate understanding of the health risks of tobacco products—so mistaken beliefs don’t cause them to start or continue using products that lead to preventable disease and death.

We are doing everything that we can to protect all Americans – especially our youth – from the dangers of tobacco, and we’re hopeful these two additional steps will accelerate our goal to make tobacco-related disease and death part of America’s past – not its future.

Margaret Hamburg, M.D., is Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration