The Affordable Care Act has been instrumental in increasing the overall screening rate for colon cancer. Colonoscopies, which used to be seen as expensive and unaffordable, are now much more affordable to low-income Americans. Still, colon cancer is expected to claim the lives of 49,190 individuals in 2016.
Currently, there are about 55.5 million Americans on Medicare and 14 percent do not have supplemental insurance. The ACA has certainly increased the accessibility of colonoscopies, but Medicare patients without supplemental insurance may still be faced with crippling out-of-pocket costs for colon screening and treatment.
A large percentage of screening colonoscopies are covered by Medicare and many private insurance companies at 100 percent. However, when a doctor finds a polyp, lesion or a positive result, a screening colonoscopy is classified as a diagnostic colonoscopy with significant costs attached.
Among Medicare patients, individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds have half the screening rate of high-income backgrounds, and a high percentage of low-income Medicare beneficiaries do not have supplemental insurance to cover treatment after a positive screening. Understandably, many individuals are apprehensive to go into a colonoscopy blindly, in fear that an affordable or no-cost procedure could become unaffordable if a polyp is discovered. When numbers and statistics are matched to these truths, it is heartbreaking. Previous studies found that 63 percent of colon cancer deaths in 2010 could have been prevented if those patients had been screened.
The only way to prevent colon cancer death is to increase screening rates. This is the purpose of the 80% by 2018 initiative. If we can screen 80 percent of all eligible Americans by 2018, we can lower colon cancer incidence by 17 percent and colon cancer mortality by 19 percent. This goal cannot be accomplished without changing policy and altering how individuals of all socioeconomic backgrounds view the importance of colon cancer screening.
"Study after study shows that screening saves lives," said Chyke A. Doubeni, M.D., M.P.H., chair and the Presidential Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and lead author of the commentary. "Yet many of those in the group most affected by this deadly disease are unable to afford the screening they critically need. We must renew efforts to ensure equitable access to and use of disease prevention, detection, and treatment services for colorectal cancer" (Source: Insurance News Net).