Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
Screen Heart Disease Patients Carefully for Depression and Watch for Better Outcomes
Plus: Get ready for revamped Provider Statistical & Reimbursement system. The new depression screening questions in OASIS C may help you achieve better outcomes for your heart disease patients. Seniors who suffer from heart disease and are subsequently diagnosed with depression are at greater risk for heart failure, according to a new study by cardiac researchers at Utah's Intermountain Medical Center. Researchers also found that taking antidepressant medications to ease depressive symptoms did not appear to mitigate this risk, according to an Intermountain release. "Our data suggest that depression is an important and emerging risk factor for heart failure among patients with coronary heart disease," says Heidi May, an IMC epidemiologist and lead author. Researchers found that a depression diagnosis following coronary heart disease was associated with a two-fold increased risk for the incidence of heart failure. This risk remained but was slightly lower after adjusting for other cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, and age. The incidence of heart failure among patients who were not depressed after being diagnosed with coronary artery disease was 3.6 per 100 compared with 16.4 per 100 for those with a post-heart disease depression diagnosis. "Patients need to be carefully screened for depression so that interventions that alter some of the risk associated with depression can be used and the related risk of heart failure and other cardiovascular events can be diminished," May urges. The study was in the April 21, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
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Screen Heart Disease Patients Carefully for Depression and Watch for Better Outcomes
Plus: Get ready for revamped Provider Statistical & Reimbursement system. The new depression screening questions [...] - IN OTHER NEWS ...
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