Fwd: [hypertension] Medicare will NOW PAY for Supplementation, ie Vitamins, e...

[Guest guest]

This posting is from the hypertension group but I thought it would be of

interest to you all.

Marianne

 

 

> Nutrition Supplementation Recognized by Medicare

>

> S. Randy Sarantos, DDS, MS, ABO, ABOM*

>

> It was only a matter of time, but something revolutionary happened in

> medicine on January 1, 2002. Medicare will recognize and pay for nutrition

> therapy for the first time. It is estimated that nutrition benefits will

> be available to more than seven million people who have diabetes and kidney

> disease (NY Times 1-1-2002) helping them to choose proper foods that can

> control or treat their illness and Congress is considering expanding

> similar benefits to people suffering from hypertension and other chronic

> disease states. This is truly a major shift by government to address

> disease control through proper diet and supplementation and opens up major

> positive opportunities in patient management.

>

> Congress was motivated and influenced by a report from the National Academy

> of Sciences that pointed out that such nutritional counseling coverage

> available to Medicare patients would save money for Medicare and benefit

> patients. It is strongly felt that Medicare's coverage will influence

> private insurers who are already providing a limited amount of paid

> nutrition counseling services into greatly expanding this valuable paradigm

> and that all insurance companies will soon follow the example set by

> Medicare in recognizing the value of nutrition counseling services to

> patients.

>

> The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that Medicare will

> spend $270 million on nutrition therapy benefits in the first 5 years. It

> has not yet been estimated the savings that might result from a reduction

> in hospital admissions, surgery and other costs which could be substantial.

> At the present time Medicare provides health insurance for over 40 million

> people who are elderly or disabled in which 6.3 million at 65 years of age

> or older have diabetes and could qualify for nutrition counseling. This

> represents a staggering 18 percent of the elderly suffering from this

> oftentimes deadly disease. In addition, epidemiologist Josef Coresh (John

> Hopkins University) reports that eight million people have lost at least

> half of their kidney function and are likely to suffer the most severe

> nutritional deficiencies. Many with kidney disease become nauseous, lose

> their appetite, have serious chemical imbalances, become edematous and

> become more susceptible to malnutrition and have a poor metabolism and

> overall general health and can be positively helped from nutritional

> counseling.

>

> Like any new paradigm introduced into the Medicare system where hundred of

> million-of-dollars of cost are involved certain priorities must be

> addressed. Certainly areas such as diabetes, kidney disease, pain

> management, cancer support are key areas that require special attention to

> help those suffering such maladies. There is no doubt that as the positive

> statistics come in as to the efficacy of nutritional counseling,

> supplementation and diet control, that eventually more and more areas of

> expanded coverage will be included. The hope is that some day that

> nutritional counseling will be standard for all disease conditions and even

> more important, be considered a standard for the prevention of disease and

> not only as a reactive therapy after one is ill. It is clear that we are

> at the frontier of recognizing the important role that nutrition can play

> in helping mankind in their everyday struggle to maintain proper health and

> wellness and that this industry will explode in the months and years ahead

> into a major service area. The credibility and endorsement by the Congress

> in approving payment for nutrition counseling was one of the breakthroughs

> needed to legitimize the importance of this paradigm. Hopefully, the

> endorsement by Congress will further motivate the private insurance

> industry to further expand its already existing nutrition counseling and

> supplementation programs.

>

> Nutrition therapy is viewed at present as an adjunct to other types of

> health care that a patient receives primarily from a physician and a

> patient must therefore have a referral from a treating practitioner or

> specialist coordinating the patient's care in order for Medicare to pay for

> the services of a registered dietitian or other nutrition professional to

> assess the patient's needs, provide counseling and develop a treatment plan

> to improve the patient's diet. The fact that Medicare has slowly been

> expanding the number of preventive health care services which includes

> nutrition therapy illustrates a positive trend that recognizes the need for

> alternative and preventive therapies such as nutrition and which trend is

> expected to continue and be expanded in the future.

>

> Based on the decision by Congress to recognize the importance of nutrition

> counseling and paying for such services, rings the bells and whistles of

> the entire health care industry and enormously raises the attention level

> of millions of people who heretofore did not really take nutritional

> supplementation, proper dieting and lifestyle changes seriously. This

> creates enormous opportunities for practitioners everywhere to get involved

> in this new health paradigm and start to set up Wellness Programs which can

> serve as a platform to better develop a variety of nutrition wellness

> services for their patients. More than ever, patients will be looking to

> their health care providers to assist them in nutrition counseling and

> supplementation not only as an adjunct to standard iatrogenic mechanical

> therapies but as alternative preventive and long range maintenance

> therapies as well

>

> We will see a grater demand for inexpensive in-home test kits to utilize

> clinical metabolic laboratory testing to better focus and monitor chemical

> imbalances and thus more accurately develop custom nutrition that targets

> and focuses with greater accuracy on the chemical imbalances detected and

> provides the basic nutrients needed to help the immune system and other

> specific body systems to restore homeostasis and better health. This is an

> explosive area of further growth and fits in well with the goals of

> Medicare and other private insurance companies to provide nutrition

> counseling and supplementation with the hopes that better health resulting

> from such programs will lower present costs of insurance as well as stem

> the rapidly rising future costs. It is an area that is wide open for

> developing inexpensive in-home test kits for diabetes, kidney disease,

> obesity, allergies, osteoporosis and many other disease states that when

> utilized by patients and sent directly into the laboratory for analysis of

> the targeted body fluids collected would provide a highly accurate and

> individualized metabolic analysis from which a customized supplemental

> protocol could be provided for such patient at a modest cost. This would

> not only be extremely cost effective but would be an important part of an

> overall nutrition program for an individual and would be part of the trio

> of (1) lifestyle changes and enhancements (2) dietary changes and (3)

> targeted and balanced nutritional supplementation. The technology and

> wellness concept is in place today to benefit millions of patients and is

> waiting for innovative and forward-thinking practitioners to implement such

> programs for their patients.

>

> In summation, a new level and heightened awareness of the benefits of

> nutritional counseling is about to explode on the national scene that will

> have profound positive health effects in the years ahead in one way or

> another on all Americans. That paradigm is nutritional counseling as an

> adjunct to maintaining health and wellness as well as being an adjunct to

> iatrogenic therapies. The concept is not new but the recognition on a

> national and governmental level is! This is where the breakthrough has

> occurred and why the momentum once begun will become a groundswell of

> enormous proportions. Practitioners must wake up and strongly position

> themselves with the knowledge and tools to implement an Office Nutrition

> Wellness Program as a necessary and important practice management component

> of their practice to meet the coming trend in providing their patients with

> nutritional supplementation as an adjunct to iatrogenic mechanical

> therapies and programs. I would venture to state that within 10 years that

> this will be standard practice in most if not all health practitioners'

> offices. Failure to do so will result in losing this important and

> valuable health service to outside competing sources and even patients who

> will seek practitioners who eagerly have set-up and provide such ancillary

> services.

>

> *Dr. S. Randy Sarantos practiced clinical orthodontics for over 28 years

> and is both a diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and a

> diplomate of the American Board of Oral Medicine. Dr. Sarantos has been

> involved in nutrition counseling for over 30 years with special emphasis

> on oral manifestations of systemic diseases and has been a long time

> advocate of prescribing nutritional supplementation too all patients as a

> positive adjunct to iatrogenic treatments particularly in the case of

> mechanical therapies performed by practitioners.

>

> Dr. Sarantos is president of Custom Nutrition Alternatives, Inc. and its

> affiliated company Dental Nutrition Alternatives, Inc. Both scientific

> research and development companies specialize in creating nutrition

> wellness programs for use by health care practitioners for their patients

> using cutting-edge scientific technology to help monitor patient

> nutritional needs and create custom nutrition products.

>

>

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Considering the *horrid* advice on nutrition & diet I received

from my local hospital's dietician, I am very sorry money is being

allocated to help support these idiots. I strongly suspect that

whatever supplements the government will be willing to pay for will

be far too little & far too low a dosage. I continue to feel that

only by digging deep into one's own pockets & by doing one's own

research can anyone hope to improve their quality of life.

 

Alobar

 

 

 

 

-

<marianne2406

<FriendsForHealthNaturally >;

 

Saturday, May 18, 2002 11:39 AM

Fwd: [hypertension] Medicare will NOW PAY for

Supplementation, ie Vitamins, e...

 

 

>

> This posting is from the hypertension group but I thought it would

be of

> interest to you all.

> Marianne

>

>

> > Nutrition Supplementation Recognized by Medicare

> >

> > S. Randy Sarantos, DDS, MS, ABO, ABOM*

> >

> > It was only a matter of time, but something revolutionary

happened in

> > medicine on January 1, 2002. Medicare will recognize and pay for

nutrition

> > therapy for the first time. It is estimated that nutrition

benefits will

> > be available to more than seven million people who have diabetes

and kidney

> > disease (NY Times 1-1-2002) helping them to choose proper foods

that can

> > control or treat their illness and Congress is considering

expanding

> > similar benefits to people suffering from hypertension and other

chronic

> > disease states. This is truly a major shift by government to

address

> > disease control through proper diet and supplementation and opens

up major

> > positive opportunities in patient management.