Medicare to foot the bill for treadmill therapy for leg pain

CHICAGO » Three times a week, Rita Driscoll steps onto a treadmill at a Minnesota hospital under the eye of a rehab therapist. She walks until it hurts — pushing her limits, walking faster and adding steeper inclines.

The retired school aide has leg pain caused by clogged blood vessels. Until recently, monitored walking wasn’t an option for people with peripheral artery disease, or PAD, because most insurance doesn’t cover it.

“I’m not giving up my legs,” said Driscoll, who walks as part of a study. “Hopefully it will keep me away from surgery and keep me walking and dancing.”

Medicare has decided to pay for supervised exercise therapy for older Americans hobbled by PAD, a serious condition linked to smoking and diabetes that puts people in danger of heart attacks, strokes and amputations. It costs Medicare nearly $4 billion a year on surgeries and procedures to treat it.

Research shows treadmill workouts overseen by a medical professional improve the distances patients can walk and their quality of life. This low-tech approach may reduce hospitalizations and help people live longer too. But virtually none of them now gets exercise therapy outside of studies.

Drugs don’t work well, so doctors have used surgery or catheter procedures with balloons or stents to bypass or unblock blood vessels in the legs. The expensive procedures — costing thousands of dollars — do work, but experiments show treadmill walking works just as well for a fraction of the cost.

About 2,600 hospitalbased rehab centers are gearing up for an influx of patients after Medicare’s decision . Other insurers usually follow Medicare’s lead so coverage for younger patients may be ahead. Peripheral artery disease affects about 8 million Americans; about 2 million of them have disabling leg pain.

“It’s often described as a cramping feeling as if someone has their leg in a vice,” said Diane Treat-Jacobson of the University of Minnesota. Her research shows that walking through the pain in short sessions with

JIM MONE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo, Rita Driscoll works on a treadmill in a supervised exercise therapy program for patients with peripheral artery disease at University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis.