Annual Medicare Spending on the Rise in Fresno Region

Medicare costs grew at a higher rate in the Fresno region from 1992 to 2006 than in any of California's 23 other Medicare hospital regions, according to an analysis published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Fresno Bee reports.

Medicare costs increased by 4.3% annually between 1992 and 2006 in the Fresno region, compared with 2.36% annually for the San Francisco region and 1.91% annually for the Palm Springs region.

Cynthia Bergmann, a Fresno gynecologist and president of the Fresno-Madera Medical Society, attributed the larger annual spending rate increases to the Fresno region's position at the low end of Medicare reimbursements in 1992.

Bergmann said that despite the spending increases, Medicare still spent more per beneficiary in Bakersfield and Modesto in 2006 than it did in the Fresno region (Anderson, Fresno Bee, 2/26).