Several years ago I saw a study that showed that when people reached Medicare Age , the suddenly health care expenses went up. Is it a surprise ?Do we really need a study to KNOW that and FIND CAUSE for it ? The answer is obvious. When people are getting OLDER there are health issues and that increases the cost . When we have Health Insurance ,then we tend to USE IT. Certain things are recommended after certain age - vaccines - preventive tests like colonoscopy -mammograms . I know some of them are to be done at an earlier age than 65 years , but still with HIGH DEDUCTIBLE Health insurance , people tend to POSTPONE them. That brings me to my today's patient.
I saw this 67 years old patient in office. He has been smoker and has continued to smoke . He had NO HEATK insurance till he got Medicare . Once he had that , he had colonoscopy and had some polyps removed . He had routine blood tests done and he had elevated cholesterols - lipid and so he was started on statins - medications and since he was a smoker he had routine LOW DOSE RADIATION SCREENING CT SCAN OF THE CHEST. Now a days for last few years. Low dose Radiation CT scan of chest is covered by Medicare and other Health insurances in patients who are over 50 years of age and are current smoker or ex smoker for 14 years . One has to take in to account the smoking pack history and also the age that we do screening is also being reduced. The idea was that we DETECT AND TREAT cancer Early, by doing the scan .But the problem is to ACT WHEN WE DO THE TESTS
He had Ct scan done in October and that showed a nodule in lung . Then then a PET SCAN was done and that was also abnormal and so he was old to see lung specialist and cancer specialist . He did not do anything and continued to smoke . Noe that he comes to me , I have to repeat the CT scan and also PET SCAN and certainly do additional work up like breathing tests and biopsy and may be even surgery . And if the cancer has grown or has spread then chemotherapy . That all will increase the COST . So to have insurance is good and that certainly increases the USE of tests , but then acting in time will reduce the cost of health care .If he needed statin 5 or more years ago then using them would reduce the cost of cardiac and vascular problems that elevated lipid would cause. So one needs to have health insurance - do proper tests and ACT ON IT and that will reduce the health care cost on long run.
