| Summary: | Diabetes is a common and growing problem for American adults, and the underuse of effective care services for diabetics illustrates the problem. Practice guidelines call for an eye examination at least once every two years for people with diabetes. The Dartmouth Atlas Project found that in many hospital referral regions in 2001, fewer than half of Medicare enrollees with diabetes had eye examinations; in the "best" regions about 75% of enrollees had them. Meanwhile, depending on the region, from 30% to 90% percent of Medicare enrollees who were diabetics did not receive annual blood screening tests of their blood sugar and lipid levels, both of which are important predictors of catastrophic outcomes such as blindness and limb amputations
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