CMS administrator Mark McClellan tells the Los Angeles Times that Medicare will launch a new initiative stressing preventative care in 2007. "If you take a big step back and look at Medicare spending, 90%-plus of what we are spending is going for the complications of chronic disease," McClellan told the paper. The agency recently added a free "Welcome to Medicare" physical available to all new arrivals in the program. The program has seen limited success so far: only 2 percent of new beneficiaries have signed up for their screenings.
- read this article from the Los Angeles Times