Medicare Preventive Services: Most Beneficiaries Receive Some but Not All Recommended Services

Preventive care depends on identifying health risks and on taking steps to control these risks. In contrast, Medicare, the federal health program insuring almost 35 million beneficiaries age 65 or older, was established largely to help pay beneficiaries' health care costs when they became ill or injured. Congress has broadened Medicare coverage over time to include specific preventive services, such as flu shots and certain cancer-screening tests, and the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) added coverage for several preventive services, including a one-time preventive care examination for new enrollees, which will start in 2005. GAO's work, done before MMA, included analyzing data from four national health surveys to examine the extent to which Medicare beneficiaries received preventive services through physician visits. GAO also interviewed officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other experts and reviewed the results of past demonstrations and studies to assess expected benefits and limits of different delivery options for preventive care, including a one-time preventive care examination.