A press release from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) CMS, reported than more than 30% of men and women who receive Medicare are considered obese. Medicare will begin offering those individuals obesity screening and counseling as part of a prevention services package under the Affordable Care Act.
How it will work
Primary care physicians administer the screening and then refer eligible patients for counseling. This individual will then receive a once-per-week face-to-face counseling for 1 month, followed by one session every week for another 5 months. IF they lose weight, they will then receive one counseling visit per month for 6 more months.
Important Step
This decision is an important step in aligning Medicare’s portfolio of preventive services with evidence and addressing risk factors for disease,” says Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, chief medical officer and director of the agency’s Office of Clinical Standards and Quality. “We at CMS are carefully and systematically reviewing the best available medical evidence to identify those preventative services that keep Medicare beneficiaries as healthy as possible, for as long as possible.”