BY LAURA DAVISON
ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

 

You're watching multisource health video news analysis from Newsy.

Medicare budgets may be slimming down, but that doesn’t mean that it’s patients are. Medicare announced that it will now pay for obesity screening and intensive behavioral counseling for the approximately 30 percent of medicare patients who are obese. NBC’s affiliate in St. Louis, KSDK, reports.

“The new benefits will include face-to-face counseling every day for a month and one counseling appointment every other week for the next five months for those who screen positive for obesity.”

If the patient loses more than 6 pounds in that period, Medicare will continue to cover monthly sessions for the next six months. These sessions are only available in a primary care facility, but the cost is completely covered without a co-pay.

And 700 Club’s Pat Robertson says the investment is worth it.

“Pat, are you OK with our tax dollars going for that sort of thing?

“Well, they’re going to go for Medicare and Medicaid so they might as well go for prevention. I’m all for prevention.”

Medicare hopes if it’s beneficiaries lose weight, it will be able to cut costs for care of related diseases like hypertension, sleep apnea and diabetes. And that price tag is surprisingly high, according to USA Today.

“According to the STOP Obesity Alliance, the overall costs of being overweight over a five-year period are $24,395 for an obese woman and $13,230 for an obese man. Thirty-four percent of U.S. adults are obese, according to the alliance, which expects that percentage to rise to 50% by 2030.”

But doctor’s are sometimes hesitant to talk to their patients about their weight. Minnesota Public Radio asked Jon Hallberg, a professor of family care medicine at the University of Minnesota, about how effective he thinks primary care doctors are at addressing obesity with their patients.  

“We don't do a very good job. The studies show that less than half of us make some kind of comment about obesity. And fewer than one in four of us actually do something about it — make a referral or make a very specific recommendation. So we're not doing a very good job with this at all.”

Hallberg said having sessions dedicated to talk about obesity will help both doctor and patient approach the sometimes uncomfortable issue.