{"id":12271,"date":"2017-02-02T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/?p=12271"},"modified":"2017-02-01T22:08:58","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T04:08:58","slug":"american-heart-association-says-seven-heart-healthy-habits-could-save-billions-in-medicare-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/2017\/02\/02\/american-heart-association-says-seven-heart-healthy-habits-could-save-billions-in-medicare-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"American Heart Association says Seven Heart-Healthy Habits could save billions in Medicare costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"lead\">American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-56563\" title=\"American Heart Association\" src=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/American-Heart-Association-new-logo-480x230.jpg\" alt=\"American Heart Association\" width=\"240\" height=\"115\"><strong>Dallas, TX<\/strong> &#8211; More than $41 billion a year in Medicare costs could be saved if all beneficiaries achieved ideal levels for five to seven heart-healthy habits to reduce cardiovascular risk, according to new research in <em>Journal of the American Heart Association, <\/em>the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association\/American Stroke Association.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_373040\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/No-smoking-sign.jpg\"  class=\"thickbox no_icon\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-373040\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-373040\" title=\"At least $41 billion annually in Medicare costs could be saved if beneficiaries adopted five to seven of the American Heart Association\u2019s Life\u2019s Simple 7 healthy habits to reduce cardiovascular disease.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/No-smoking-sign-480x309.jpg\" alt=\"At least $41 billion annually in Medicare costs could be saved if beneficiaries adopted five to seven of the American Heart Association\u2019s Life\u2019s Simple 7 healthy habits to reduce cardiovascular disease.\" width=\"480\" height=\"309\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-373040\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">At least $41 billion annually in Medicare costs could be saved if beneficiaries adopted five to seven of the American Heart Association\u2019s Life\u2019s Simple 7 healthy habits to reduce cardiovascular disease.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!--more-->The American Heart Association\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.heart.org\/HEARTORG\/Conditions\/My-Life-Check---Lifes-Simple-7_UCM_471453_Article.jsp#.WHBu0E2Qzrc\" >Life\u2019s Simple 7<\/a> is a composite measure of seven modifiable heart-healthy factors: cigarette smoking, physical activity, diet, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers estimated the annual financial impact of <em>Life\u2019s Simple 7<\/em> compliance using one year of follow-up data from the Reasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, a national, population-based, longitudinal study. They focused on Medicare claims for 6,262 beneficiaries over the age of 65 with fee-for-service coverage and no prior history of cardiovascular disease.<\/p>\n<h3>In primary analyses, researchers found:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Only 6.4 percent of participants had five to seven ideal factors.<\/li>\n<li>Participants with fewer <em>Life\u2019s Simple 7 <\/em>scores were more likely to be women, black or be unmarried, or have an annual income less than $20,000 or have less than a high school education.<\/li>\n<li>Those with higher scores were also less likely to have all-cause and cardiovascular disease-related inpatient or outpatient encounters in the year following their in-home study visit.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Total inpatient and outpatient healthcare expenditures were $5,016 less for participants with the most ideal heart-healthy factors compared to those with the least number of factors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By extending estimates from the primary analyses to corresponding 2014 Medicare beneficiaries, researchers found:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Participants with fewer than five of the heart-healthy measures accounted for more than half of all inpatient costs each year, and approximately one-third of total outpatient claims.<\/li>\n<li>The potential annualized cost reduction is $41.2 billion for inpatient, outpatient and total expenditures, respectively, if all Medicare beneficiaries had five to seven <em>Life\u2019s Simple 7<\/em> factors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe actual cost for persons with fewer than five to seven factors is almost certainly higher,\u201d according to Kristal J. Aaron, Dr.P.H., M.S.P.H., lead author and clinical data manager at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. \u201cSkilled nursing facility, home health and hospice care, durable medical supplies, and medications were excluded in this analyses; thus, our study was limited to inpatient and outpatient visits for beneficiaries with Medicare fee-for-service in the 2014 calendar year, so this is probably a very conservative estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[320left]She added that the data suggests that public health strategies and initiatives improve the number of <em>Life\u2019s Simple 7<\/em> factors across the population and age spectrum, even those over 65 years of age \u201coffer the potential for significant cost savings, not just better health outcomes and quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Co-authors are Lisandro Colantonio, M.D., M.Sc.; Luqin Deng, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Suzanne Judd, Ph.D.; Julie Locher, Ph.D.; Monika Safford, M.D.; Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc.; Meredith Kilgore, Ph.D., M.S.P.H.; David Becker, Ph.D.; and Paul Muntner, Ph.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.<\/p>\n<p>The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Heart, Lung, and Blood&nbsp;Institute, and the National Institute on Aging funded the study.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>View the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/jaha.ahajournals.org\/content\/6\/2\/e004862\" >manuscript<\/a> online.<\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.heart.org\/HEARTORG\/HealthyLiving\/Make-the-Effort-to-Prevent-Heart-Disease-with-Lifes-Simple-7_UCM_443750_Article.jsp#.WHfgJ02Qzrc\" >Make the Effort to Prevent Heart Disease with Life&#8217;s Simple 7<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.heart.org\/achieving-lifes-simple-7-reduces-more-than-heart-disease\/\" >Achieving Life&#8217;s Simple 7reduces-more-than-heart-disease<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Follow AHA\/ASA news on Twitter <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/\" >@HeartNews<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>For updates and new science from JAHA, follow <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaha_aha\" >@JAHA_AHA<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report Dallas, TX &#8211; More than $41 billion a year in Medicare costs could be saved if all beneficiaries achieved ideal levels for five to seven heart-healthy habits to reduce cardiovascular risk, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[2538,2975,2515,5163,2554,88,4030,2517,2994,7802,2079,6265,941,8125],"class_list":["post-12271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-american-heart-association","tag-american-stroke-association","tag-blood-pressure","tag-body-mass-index","tag-cardiovascular-disease","tag-cholesterol","tag-dallas-tx","tag-diet","tag-glucose","tag-lifes-simple-7","tag-medicare","tag-physical-activity","tag-smoking","tag-university-of-alabama-birmingham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12272,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12271\/revisions\/12272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}