© Geriatric Times. All rights reserved.
Educating Patients About Diabetes
Geriatric Times July/August 2001 Vol. II Issue 4
One of the strong, underlying messages of the new cholesterol guidelines issued by the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) is that physicians should pay more attention to diabetes as a predictor of heart disease. And in fact, even before the NCEP guidelines were released, the federal government was beginning to make a push to convince physicians and seniors to monitor blood sugar levels more closely. That push on the prevention front coincided with a stepping up of research; the Bush administration has asked for $768 million for diabetes research in fiscal 2002, which starts Oct. 1, 2001. That is a $78 million increase over the current year.
Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced a new public education program in May; its focus is to remind senior citizens that Medicare picks up most of the cost of blood sugar self-monitoring kits as long as a physician issues a prescription for the blood sugar test strips, lancets, blood sugar testing monitors and spring-powered devices for lancets.
"Patients on fixed incomes often find it hard to purchase blood sugar monitoring equipment and supplies," Michael McMullan, acting Deputy Administrator of the then-Health Care Financing Administration, currently known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the press. "Older adults as well as younger people with disabilities who have diabetes-—and their health care providers—-need to know that Medicare benefits are available to help them delay or prevent complications from diabetes."
Among Americans aged 65 and older, 6.3 million people (18.4% of this age group) have diabetes. The most common form is type 2, often called adult-onset diabetes, which affects 90% to 95% of people with diabetes.
"With 2,186 new cases of diabetes diagnosed every day in the United States, many of them in older people, we believe that educating people with diabetes is key to controlling this silent killer," explained Charles M. Clark, M.D., chair of the National Diabetes Education Program Steering Committee, which is jointly run by the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a press release. "We know it is critical to a healthier aging process," he stated.--SB
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