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Seniors living in Manhattan spend an average of nearly 25 days a year at doctor visits or at a hospital. But in Lebanon, New Hampshire, contact with the healthcare system is far lower - just 10 days on average. New Yorkers probably are not that much sicker than their New England neighbors. Instead, the statistic reflects the wide variation in the way healthcare is delivered to older adults around the United States. (Miller, 3/10)

Some doctors and a key group of preventive care experts are not seeing eye to eye on seniors’ need for vision screening during primary care visits. There’s not enough evidence to know whether giving seniors a vision test when they visit their primary care doctor will lead to earlier detection and treatment of cataracts, age-related macular degeneration or refractive problems that could require corrective glasses and contacts, according to guidelines published by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Andrews, 3/11)