Heart failure expenditures totaled 37 percent of Medicare spending in 2005.

"Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure have many more doctor visits and take more medications than those without heart failure," according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's annual scientific sessions. Professor Robert Page, of the University of Colorado, and colleagues, analyzed "data on 173,000 Medicare beneficiaries. The overall average age of the beneficiaries was 70.7 years, while the average age for those with heart failure was between 76 and 77 years." The researchers found that "patients with severe heart failure saw an average of 23 different Medicare providers a year, compared with about 7.9 providers for typical Medicare beneficiaries." The authors calculated that, for "2005, beneficiaries with heart failure accounted for 37 percent of all Medicare spending, and almost 50 percent of all hospital inpatient costs."