News Release
Advancing Medical Technology Likely to Greatly Inflate Future Medicare Costs
Sep 26, 2005
Published in: Health Affairs - Web Exclusive, Sep. 26, 2005, p. W5-R67-W5-R76
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2005
The authors used a method that combined literature review and expert judgment to assess potential medical innovations for older adults. They evaluated innovations in four domains: cardiovascular disease, cancer, the biology of aging, and neurologic disease. The innovations can be categorized by common themes: improved disease prevention, better detection of subclinical or early clinical disease, and treatments for established disease. The authors report the likelihood, potential impact, and potential cost implications for thirty-four innovations, and they revisit this forecast five years later. Many of the innovations have the potential to greatly affect the costs and outcomes of health care.
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