motives of mammogram guidelines | Health | Reuters
"What is going to happen is insurers are going to say, 'The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force doesn't support screening. We're not going to pay for it,'"
No kidding. If you want to cut health care costs you might want to start with the 'care' that patients receive. What about the pharmaceuticals? What about Medicare fraud? Everyone can easily add to the list of things that could cut health care costs before telling patients that early detection is not cost effective.
I read the article you linked to in the previous post on this subject, and have done some reading on this subject before now. My own opinion is that mammograms are not the be-all and end-all of breast cancer prevention, and that the risks of "over-screening" in this matter are real. I would say that the experts are probably right and that women should weigh the pros and cons of this particular procedure.
ReplyDeleteBut as this article suggests, the problem here is the insurance companies and how they will deal with this latest expert opinion. Sigh. Here in Canada it just isn't an issue, mammograms will likely be underwritten regardless, but in the American situation the insurance companies are powerful enough to use this opinion to the detriment of women who could really benefit from the procedure. It's not so much the expert opinion that is dangerous here, but the excess of power given to for-profit insurance companies.
I agree, and if the first article had stated that doctors and other health professionals had come to this conclusion, I might have bought it...but when I saw that the health insurance industry was involved, everything written by the group was suspect.
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