The cold and flu season is upon us — and with that comes the potential overuse of antibiotics. All too often, physicians prescribe antibiotics for viral infections, which typically is ineffectual and can even be dangerous for elderly Medicare patients.

An estimated 2 million Americans are infected with drug-resistant organisms each year, resulting in 23,000 deaths and more than $20 billion in excess costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Excessive antibiotic use in cold and flu season is not only costly, but it also contributes to antibiotic resistance, writes Stanford Health Policy's Marcella Alsan and her co-authors in a study published in the December edition of Medical Care. The study’s objective was to develop an index of excessive antibiotic use in cold and flu season and determine its correlation with other indicators of clinically appropriate or inappropriate prescribing.

Alsan and senior author, Dartmouth economist Jonathan Skinner, concluded that flu-related antibiotic use was correlated with prescribing high-risk medications to the elderly.

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