Medicare Now Covers Some Smoking Cessation Counseling

Medicare will immediately start covering the cost of counseling for certain beneficiaries who want to quit smoking. Not every Medicare beneficiary qualifies for the new benefit -- only those who have an illness caused by, or complicated by, tobacco use. It covers only counseling sessions, not the cost of nicotine patches and gum or other products. Medicare officials said they did not have an estimate of how much the new program would cost or how many people would be eligible for it. About 300,000 senior citizens die annually from smoking-related illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials at the American Medical Association applauded the government's move. They said seniors actually have a better chance of successfully quitting smoking than do people in other age categories. "Studies have shown that seniors who try to quit smoking are 50 percent more likely to succeed than all other age groups, and seniors who quit can reduce their risk of death from heart disease to that of nonsmokers within two to three years after quitting," said Dr. Ronald Davis, an AMA trustee.

On the Net: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: www.cms.hhs.gov

-Adapted from: “Gov't to cover smoking cessation programs” By Kevin Freking, Associated Press Writer, The Boston Globe, March 22, 2005.

03/2005