Abstract
The Medicare programme already funds a large proportion of the medical care for older Americans. However, geriatricians are an underutilised resource for improving the quality of care delivered with Medicare funding, particularly to the most complex patients. Recent legislative changes will increase the involvement of the Medicare programme in the area of outpatient medications. This offers an important opportunity to bring geriatric consultation to bear on a broad range of geriatric prescribing issues, including polypharmacy, pharmacological undertreatment and inappropriate prescription choice.
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The author’s research receives support from grant number 5 P20 MD 524-2, from the National Center of Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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Nusbaum, N.J. Improving Elder Care by Integrating Geriatric Expertise into Medicare. Drugs Aging 22, 371–374 (2005). https://doi.org/10.2165/00002512-200522050-00002
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2165/00002512-200522050-00002