LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A study of California patients on Medicare and Medicaid found they received 65 percent of the tests, diagnostics, evaluations and treatments recommended.
Lead author Dr. David S. Zingmond of the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California at Los Angeles gathered data from 100,258 geriatric patients in 19 California counties from 1999 to 2000 enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. The mean age of participants was 81.
The study, published in the journal Medical Care, found that often elderly patients were not given the full range of treatments and services for their conditions.
Zingmond said that only 42 percent of patients with diabetes were tested to gauge their blood sugar control or received an eye examination during the one-year study period, while patients newly diagnosed with heart failure did not receive recommended diagnostic evaluations or medications known to be effective.
"Thirty-five percent of the medical care interventions that they should have received were not provided, indicating significant room for improvement," Zingmond said in a statement. "We'd much rather have everything higher -- say, at least 90 percent."
