Heather T. Gold

The Cost of Breast Cancer Screening in the Medicare Population

BACKGROUND Little is known about the cost to Medicare of breast cancer screening or whether regional-level screening expenditures are associated with cancer stage at diagnosis or treatment costs, particularly because newer breast cancer screening technologies, like digital mammography and computer-aided detection (CAD), have diffused into the care of older women. METHODS Using the linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database, we identified 137 274 women ages 66 to 100 years who had not had breast cancer and assessed the cost to fee-for-service Medicare of breast cancer screening and workup during 2006 to 2007. For women who developed cancer, we calculated initial treatment cost. We then assessed screening-related cost at the Hospital Referral Region (HRR) level and evaluated the association between regional expenditures and workup test utilization, cancer incidence, and treatment costs. RESULTS In the United States, the annual costs to fee-for-service Medicare for breast cancer screening-related procedures (comprising screening plus workup) and treatment expenditures were

Twitter response to the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommendations against screening with prostate-specific antigen.

1.08 billion and

The cost implications of prostate cancer screening in the Medicare population

1.36 billion, respectively. For women 75 years or older, annual screening-related expenditures exceeded

End-of-Life Care for People With Cancer From Ethnic Minority Groups A Systematic Review

410 million. Age-standardized screening-related cost per beneficiary varied more than 2-fold across regions (from

Referral, Receipt, and Completion of Chemotherapy in Patients With Early-Stage Breast Cancer Older Than 65 Years and at High Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence

42 to

Regional-Level Correlations in Inappropriate Imaging Rates for Prostate and Breast Cancers: Potential Implications for the Choosing Wisely Campaign

107 per beneficiary); digital screening mammography and CAD accounted for 65% of the difference in screening-related cost between HRRs in the highest and lowest quartiles of cost. Women residing in HRRs with high screening costs were more likely to be diagnosed as having early-stage cancer (incidence rate ratio, 1.78 [95% CI, 1.40-2.26]). There was no significant difference in the cost of initial cancer treatment per beneficiary between the highest and lowest screening cost HRRs (

Decision to adopt medical technology: case study of breast cancer radiotherapy techniques.

151 vs

The pen and the scalpel: effect of diffusion of information on nonclinical variations in surgical treatment.

115; P = .20). CONCLUSIONS The cost to Medicare of breast cancer screening exceeds

Incidence and Risk Factors for Blood Transfusion in Total Joint Arthroplasty: Analysis of a Statewide Database

1 billion annually in the fee-for-service program. Regional variation is substantial and driven by the use of newer and more expensive technologies; it is unclear whether higher screening expenditures are achieving better breast cancer outcomes.

Tweet this: how advocacy for breast and prostate cancers stacks up on social media

To examine public and media response to the draft (October 2011) and finalised (May 2012) recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) against prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) testing via Twitter, a popular social network with over 200 million active users.