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There are many stop smoking programs
available on the internet which provide information about methods to
eradicate the smoking habit of all the smokers. Similarly, the center
for Medical and Medicare services has come up with a new program called
medicare stop smoking program. This program has been developed keeping
in mind the number of smokers all over the world as smoking is the
single most preventable cause of various diseases and deaths in The
United States, posing a significant risk to the older Americans. The
ultimate aim of this program is to help the seniors to quit smoking.
This program tests health promotion options for smoking cessation for
determining the most effective and feasible option for seniors.
This program involves many strategies including counseling,
either face to face or over the phone, nicotine patches, a prescription
cessation strategies with seniors, and educational materials. Smoking
cessation is beneficial to any age as even after years of heavy smoking,
people who quit smoking notice vast improvement in breathing and
circulation thus decreasing the risk of stroke.
The medicare stop
smoking program would help the policy makers identify the best way to
cover smoking cessation services under medicare using the following
interventions:
1) Medicare reimbursement for provider counseling alone
2) Medicare reimbursement for provider counseling along with the coverage
for smoking cessation drugs bupropion, and the nicotine patches.
3) Counseling through telephone plus coverage for the nicotine patch or
selected enrollees.
For getting information only.
The reason behind this program is the fact that tobacco use causes more
than 430000 deaths and costs The United States somewhere between $50 to
$73 billion in medical expenses every year. One future fact is that
medicare expenditures for treating smoking related illness have been
estimated to be about $800 billion between 1995 and 2015. But the truth
is that this huge amount would make seniors quit their smoking habit to
lead a healthy and prosperous life.
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