Medicare Will Cover Obesity Education

Obama and Medicare have done good. For the most part.

The US government will now pay for a year's worth of obesity counseling for Medicare patients, putting an emphasis on lifestyle modification and education, knowing that in the long term, those who fare the best are the ones who have an understanding of the problem.


From TheHeart.org:
Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it will cover obesity screening and counseling as a preventive service under Medicare. The services will be free to beneficiaries; the Medicare deductible and copay will not apply.

Medicare patients are eligible for "intensive behavioral therapy for obesity" from primary-care providers—nonphysicians included—in a primary-care setting if their body-mass index (BMI) is >30 kg/m2. They are entitled to one face-to-face counseling visit each week for a month, followed by a face-to-face session every other week for an additional five months.


There's also an incentive built in, wherein if a patient loses more than 6.6 lbs over 6 months, they qualify for another 6 months of education - and those who do not? Prison. Nah, just a 6 month period of the patient's "readiness to change".

Specific items covered under the new law:
- an obesity screening,
- an assessment of the patient's diet, and
- behavioral counseling and therapy to promote sustained weight loss through diet and exercise.

This course of treatment does not include medications for losing weight. How much Medicare will actually pay out to the healthcare professionals educating has not been established.

See the official decision memo published online by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).