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letter
. 2019 Oct 22;35(1):368–370. doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-05437-1

Table 1.

Intensive Behavioral Therapy Claims (G0447, G0473) Among Medicare Beneficiaries, 2012–2015

CY2012 CY2013 CY2014 CY2015 CY2015
Individual G0447 Individual G0447 Individual G0447 Individual G0447 Group G0473
No. of users
N (%)		 Claims per user* No. of users
N (%)		 Claims per user* No. of users
N (%)		 Claims per user* No. of users
N (%)		 Claims per user* No. of users
N (%)		 Claims per user*
Overall count 27,338 (0.1) 1.99 46,821 (0.17) 2.16 46,171 (0.17) 2.18 57,136 (0.2) 2.10 440 (0.0) 5.90
Sex
  Female 16,894 (0.11) 2.06 29,195 (0.18) 2.24 28,120 (0.18) 2.25 34,414 (0.22) 2.17 319 (0.0) 6.01
  Male 10,444 (0.09) 1.87 17,626 (0.14) 2.03 18,051 (0.15) 2.06 22,722 (0.18) 1.99 121 (0.0) 5.64
Race†
  Black 2588 (0.12) 1.89 4682 (0.21) 2.09 4744 (0.22) 2.11 6206 (0.29) 2.05 62 (0.0) 3.29
  Non-Black 24,750 (0.10) 2.00 42,139 (0.16) 2.17 41,427 (0.16) 2.18 50,930 (0.20) 2.10 378 (0.0) 6.33
State-level obesity prevalence quintiles‡
  Quintile 1 5703 (0.09) 2.11 5437 (0.12) 2.02 14,332 (0.21) 2.13 16,897 (0.28) 2.04 134 (0.01) 8.16
  Quintile 2 3772 (0.09) 2.00 14,564 (0.21) 2.24 2946 (0.09) 2.68 14,819 (0.27) 2.00 46 (0.0) 3.54
  Quintile 3 3375 (0.09) 2.10 4928 (0.09) 2.47 13,507 (0.26) 2.11 5523 (0.12) 2.13 75 (0.0) 4.92
  Quintile 4 6385 (0.09) 1.78 8127 (0.13) 2.09 5148 (0.11) 2.12 11,982 (0.18) 2.09 0 (0.0) 0.00
  Quintile 5 1835 (0.03) 2.23 3919 (0.08) 2.26 10,221 (0.14) 2.20 6204 (0.12) 2.27 1049 (0.03) 6.19

Values represented are number of beneficiaries availing of the IBT benefit (percentage). The number of eligible Medicare beneficiaries whose body mass index (BMI) was ≥ 30 kg/m2 in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 was 27,971,740; 28,146,952; 27,767,493; and 27,954,001, respectively

CY calendar year

*Claims per user represent the ratio of the overall number of any intensive behavioral therapy (IBT) claims and the number of beneficiaries using IBT beneficiary population in the given stratum; claims were fee-for-service Medicare Part B claims

†Proportion of IBT users with obesity that are classified as Black do not include certain states in BRFSS due to cell suppression

‡Quintiles of state-level obesity prevalence are grouped according to the lowest 20% (quintile 1) and highest (quintile 5). Data on obesity prevalence was obtained from the 2012–2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (http://www.cdc.gov/brfss)