Health Insurance Blog

Mammograms are the best way to detect breast cancer, but the number of Florida clinics performing the procedure has dropped by 10 percent in the past six years. Since 1999 the total number of mammography clinics has declined by more than 1,200, a decrease of 12 percent, according to a report released last week by Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner of Brooklyn, N.Y.Weiner plans to introduce an “Assure Access to Mammography Act” this week, which would raise Medicare reimbursement rates for mammograms.

That should help existing clinics stay open and, Weiner said, “reverse the decline in the number of . . . women seeking these life-saving exams.” Since 2001, the number of certified mammography clinics in Florida has declined from 505 to 456, according to the American Cancer Society. Entrekin worries that longer wait times for mammograms will discourage women from getting them.When an annual mammogram becomes “a once-every-18-months mammogram,” it can lead to frustration and women skipping them altogether, particularly if their previous mammograms have shown no problems.

While there is no definitive statewide data on mammogram-screening rates, Entrekin said there is no question that national mammogram-screening rates have declined during the past five years. The director of the Women’’s Center for Radiology in Orlando said several new mammography centers have opened in Orlando within the past year.

According to the American Cancer Society’’s statewide registry, the number of certified mammography facilities in Metro Orlando has inched from 36 to 37 since 2002.But a slight increase hasn”t eliminated the problem for many Central Florida women. At the Women’’s Center for Radiology, for example, the waiting time for screening mammograms is short — less than a week, Belmont said. But the average wait time for a diagnostic mammogram is six weeks.Since diagnostic mammograms are for women with symptoms of breast cancer, having to wait any length of time can be agonizing.

The wait times for diagnostic mammograms are far shorter — one to two weeks — at the Kissimmee Outpatient Center — but a woman who calls today for a screening mammogram won”t get in until March 2008, said the center’’s administrator, Polly Rodeffer. “As a service provider, I hate that the service I”m providing is seven months away,” Rodeffer said.

She explained those shorter wait times can be costly because insurance networks often exclude hospital-based imaging centers for mammography coverage. Checks with imaging centers connected to M.D. Anderson, Florida Hospital and Osceola Regional

Medical Center found wait times of two weeks or less for diagnostic mammograms, and a much wider range for screening mammograms: two to three days at Osceola Regional, two to eight weeks at M.D. Anderson. Elise MacCarroll, who oversees mammography services for Florida Hospital’’s seven Metro Orlando campuses, said wait times in Central Florida had improved considerably in the past three years. “We used to have a tremendous backlog, the same thing New York is going through now: So many [mammograms] to do and not enough sites to do them.”If you”re a woman who feels something in her breast and can”t get in for an exam, be persistent.

If one place doesn”t have a time, call another.”