- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
The Mammography Debate Resurfaces-This Time it's Medicare Spending
Despite increased spending, the breast cancer detection rate and stage did not change, according to a new JNCI study.
Medicare's mammography costs increased by almost 50% over a 7-year period while the breast cancer detection rate and stage at diagnosis did not change, a 270,000-patient study showed.
Annual Medicare spending rose from $666 million during 2001 to 2002, to $962 million in 2008 to 2009, according to Cary P. Gross, MD, of Yale University, and colleagues. The number of women screened and detection rates for early-stage disease were similar during the two time periods.
The rise in cost coincided with widespread transition from plain-film to more expensive digital mammography, they reported online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"I view this as important preliminary data suggesting there has been no improvement whatsoever [in detection rates]," Gross told MedPage Today. "As far as why there was no improvement, it's either because the new technology was not more effective or maybe we just need longer follow-up time, and only time will tell."
Read the original report here: http://bit.ly/1qQh4p4
Source: medpageToday
Laundromats as a New Frontier in Community Health, Medicaid Outreach
May 29th 2025Lindsey Leininger, PhD, and Allister Chang, MPA, highlight the potential of laundromats as accessible, community-based settings to support Medicaid outreach, foster trust, and connect families with essential health and social services.
Listen
New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
Listen
