eAlert Tue, 10/17/2017 - 12:00 626bbf74-7ce2-4c33-b5b0-e209083c0d0c

<p>As much as 5 percent of health care spending in Medicare is “potentially preventable,” according to a new Commonwealth Fund–supported study in <em>Annals of Internal Medicine. </em>And a relatively small group of high-cost patients, many of whom are frail and elderly, account for most of it.</p><p>The research team, led by Jose F. Figueroa, M.D., and Ashish K. Jha, M.D., says its findings highlight the need to mitigate the health consequences of frailty, particularly as the U.S. population grows older. By targeting the 4 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who are frail and elderly for care management interventions, clinical leaders and policymakers, the authors say, could substantially reduce avoidable spending in the health system.</p>

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2017/oct/medicare-spending-potentially-preventable Read more