The Alaska Division of Public Health is encouraging the state’s diabetic residents to self-manage their disease to help bring down Medicaid costs.
Nelly Ayala, Manager of the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program, says in the U.S. a diabetic individual spends approximately three times more on treatments than a non-diabetic citizen. In Alaska, the Division broke those costs down by Medicaid beneficiaries 20 years and older.
Ayala: “For beneficiaries with diabetes the amount of beneficiaries in 2014 was 6,396 and the incurred costs per diabetic beneficiary was $26,310, which is almost double that of diabetics for the U.S. population in 2012.”
She stated in a webinar Tuesday that prevention one answer since diabetes is known to be linked to inactivity, obesity, smoking, and poor nutrition.
In 2014 about 8.2 percent of Alaskan women and 7.4 percent of Alaskan men were recorded to be diagnosed with diabetes
So for those already diagnosed, Ayala says self-management education helps people with diabetes learn to eat well, get exercise and monitor their blood sugar.
She says those steps in self-management education have been proven to help lower costs to other states’ healthcare systems along with helping individuals live healthier.
