Beta blockers cost-effective to society for heart failure treatment.

2004 FEB 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Beta-blocker therapy for the treatment of heart failure can provide significant cost savings for the health care system, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI).

Beta-blocker therapy reduced societal costs by $3959 per patient over 5 years, the study showed. However, while the costs to Medicare declined by $6064 per patient, the cost to the individual patient increased by $2113 over 5 years because Medicare currently does not cover the cost of prescription medications. Congress enacted a Medicare prescription drug benefit in November 2003, but this will not take full effect until 2006. Even then, beneficiaries in many cases will still pay a significant amount of the cost of …