Sinema-backed legislation expands training for Arizonans with diabetes on how to manage their condition, prevent complications, and hospitalizations
WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema cosponsored the Diabetes Self-Management Training Act—bipartisan legislation that expands the diabetes self-management training benefit for Medicare beneficiaries.
“Expanding self-management training empowers Arizona Medicare recipients who have diabetes to manage the condition through certified health experts in order to live healthier lives,” said Sinema.
The Diabetes Self-Management Training Act helps Arizonans with diabetes learn from certified diabetes educators about how to manage their diabetes, prevent complications, and hospitalizations. The bipartisan legislation expands the diabetes self-management training benefit for Medicare beneficiaries by removing the one-year limit on coverage, so the beneficiary could roll over their unused training hours to future years if unused at the end of the first year, and testing out virtual trainings to reach more beneficiaries.
Diabetes self-management training is conducted by certified diabetes educators who teach Medicare patients on how to manage their diabetes. Patients who go through diabetes self-management training see improved care, lower health care costs, and a lower mortality rate. Medicare currently covers 10 hours of diabetes self-management care for patients with diabetes within a year of their diagnosis, if they are referred by their primary health care provider.
Approximately 600,000 Arizona adults have been diagnosed with diabetes. Before the coronavirus pandemic, diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in Arizona.
Sinema cosponsored this bipartisan legislation during the 116th Congress.