Mississippi Offering Free Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Coaching forMedicare Beneficiaries

As World Diabetes Day approaches, celebrated this year on Monday, November 14, Mississippi Lifestyle Care is introducing the Mississippi Diabetes Prevention Program. This program will offer Medicare Part B participants the opportunity to engage in free lifestyle coaching to help prevent diabetes.

Mississippi is one of the first states to have a statewide Lifestyle Coach workforce to provide access to diabetes prevention care to help Medicare Part B beneficiaries with diet, exercise, healthy lifestyles, and weight loss for a full year at no cost. Thanks to the Diabetes Coalition of Mississippi a workforce is being deployed to provide the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program.

For those that qualify as having prediabetes, a Lifestyle Coach will provide in-person support to help participants feel good, look better, live longer, and reduce their chances of experiencing the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Prediabetes is a condition where individuals have higher than normal blood sugar which increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future. It is estimated that 814,000 Mississippians have prediabetes, and many do not know it. With eight in ten people on Medicare living with two or more chronic conditions and four in ten living with four or more, the writing is on the wall that something must be done to improve overall health outcomes.It is critical to address burdensome health care costs for seniors with fixed incomes working to manage their budgets and their health.

Mississippi Lifestyle Care is focused on healthy lifestyle change to reduce the massive chronic disease burden on the state’s healthcare systems. Never has a statewide effort launched a border-to-border Lifestyle Coach workforce to confront type 2 diabetes, obesity, and social determinants of health barriers.

Those who are interested in participating should visit www.mslifestylecare.com to find out if they are eligible for the program.