Medicare Coverage Will Now Include Annual Lung Cancer Screening of Smokers
For people, between the ages 55 and 77 years, who have a smoking history, Medicare will be covering a low-dose CT-scan a year. Current smokers, those who quit smoking at least 15 years ago and those who had smoked at least a pack of cigarettes for 30 years are the beneficiaries of the policy.
‘’This is an important new Medicare preventive benefit since lung cancer is the third most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.’’
Cost of 20 years of testing
- $10,000 for Smoker ($500 each year)
- $100 for Vitamin D test ($100 – once per lifetime)
Medicare is paying 100X more for ''lung cancer prevention" than for preventing of scores of diseases by encouraging vitamin D supplementation.
Doctors are totally unable to learn about how much vitamin D a person needs when they are not able to test to see how much the patient has after supplementation.
See also VitaminDWiki
- Smoking reduces vitamin D - many studies
- Warning – Medicare will pay for just 1 vitamin D test PER LIFETIME (if not related to a few diseases)
- 80 X increase in Vitamin D testing in Australia in a decade - June 2013 - before they stopped paying for the tests
- Vitamin D testing typically not needed, but in 9 cases it is – April 2012
- Search VitaminDWiki for "VITAMIN C" (SMOKE OR SMOKING) 143 results as of Feb 2015
See also web
- CMS Proviso on Lung Cancer Screening: Good or Bad? Medscape Dec 2014
95% of nodules detected were benign -National Lung Screening Trial
For patients at highest risk: have to screen 161 patients for each life saved from lung cancer