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Article: Beta blockers cost-effective to society for heart failure treatment.
- Article from:
- Health & Medicine Week
- Article date:
- February 2, 2004
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2004 FEB 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Beta-blocker therapy for the treatment of heart failure can provide significant cost savings for the health care system, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI).
Beta-blocker therapy reduced societal costs by $3959 per patient over 5 years, the study showed. However, while the costs to Medicare declined by $6064 per patient, the cost to the individual patient increased by $2113 over 5 years because Medicare currently does not cover the cost of prescription medications. Congress enacted a Medicare prescription drug benefit in November 2003, but this will not take full ...