The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has given Medicare beneficiaries access to free preventive services such as annual wellness visits, mammograms, colonoscopies and smoking cessation. Here are some more CMS findings on free preventive service utilization since the law’s passage.
1. During the first 11 months of 2012, an estimated 24.7 million people with traditional Medicare received one or more free preventive services.
2. Factoring in Medicare Advantage utilization rates and a full year of experience, approximately 34.1 million Medicare beneficiaries received at least one free preventive service in 2012.
3. In the first 11 months of 2013, an estimated 3.5 million traditional Medicare beneficiaries took advantage of the free annual wellness visit, up from 2.7 million at the same point in time in 2012.
4. The state with the highest free service utilization rate in the first 11 months of 2013 was Massachusetts, where 76.7 percent of traditional Medicare beneficiaries took advantage of one or more preventive services at no out-of-pocket cost.
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