Every year, thousands of older people die needlessly. HCFA appreciates the participation of the selected Medicare beneficiaries in this survey. The information these studies provide will help HCFA to better its efforts to improve the quality of the health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Flu usually is a mild disease in healthy children, young adults, and middle-aged people. However, it can be life threatening in older adults.
Flu viruses change all the time.
For this reason, you need to get a flu shot every year. To give your body time to build the proper defense, it's important to get a flu shot between September and mid-November, before the flu season usually starts. Although side effects from the flu shot are slight for most people, some soreness, redness, or swelling may occur on the arm where the shot was given. About 5 to 10 percent of people have mild side effects such as headache or low-grade fever, which last for about a day after vaccination. The flu shot is the primary method of preventing and controlling the flu.