Doctors may get paid more to help patients quit smoking

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed increasing physician reimbursement by 19 percent for smoking cessation counselling provided during patient visits. The same increase would apply to assessments of alcohol and substance misuse. The proposal is open for public comment until 14 September 2026.

Proven effective, but underfunded

Cessation support delivered by a physician is well-established as effective. Yet many doctors rarely offer it, partly because current reimbursement does not reflect the time and clinical effort involved. The proposal explicitly acknowledges that current valuations fail to reflect the clinical intensity of these time-based services.

Quitting smoking has direct consequences for life expectancy. People who stop at age forty regain on average around nine years compared to those who continue. Vascular, lung and cardiac tissue age measurably faster in smokers. Biological aging clocks based on DNA methylation consistently show higher values in smokers than in non-smokers of the same calendar age.

More than a cessation conversation

The proposal touches on a broader issue: prevention is systematically under-reimbursed relative to treatment in most healthcare systems. If cessation support becomes consistently compensated, it could shift how physicians allocate time during brief consultations.

Whether the proposal will be finalised remains uncertain. But the direction is clear: quitting smoking is not a marginal topic in longevity science. It is one of the most robustly supported ways to slow biological aging. Removing financial barriers for physicians who initiate that conversation represents a policy intervention with measurable health returns.

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