Navigating the murky waters of colorectal cancer screening and health reform

B.B. Green, G.D. Coronado, J.E. Devoe and J. Allison

American Journal of Public Health, 2014, vol. 104, issue 6, 982-986

Abstract: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that both Medicaid and insurance plans cover life-saving preventive services recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force, including colorectal cancer (CRC) screening and choice between colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy, and fecal occult blood testing (FOBT). People who choose FOBT or sigmoidoscopy as their initial test could face high, unexpected, out-of-pocket costs because the mandate does not cover needed follow-up colonoscopies after positive tests. Some people will have no coverage for any CRC screening because of lack of state participation in the ACA or because they do not qualify (e.g., immigrant workers). Existing disparities in CRC screening and mortality will worsen if policies are not corrected to fully cover both initial and follow-up testing.

Keywords: aged; article; colonoscopy; colorectal tumor; early diagnosis; health care disparity; health care policy; human; insurance; legal aspect; medically uninsured; medicare; middle aged; occult blood; patient preference; sigmoidoscopy; statistics; United States, Aged; Colonoscopy; Colorectal Neoplasms; Early Detection of Cancer; Health Care Reform; Healthcare Disparities; Humans; Insurance Coverage; Medically Uninsured; Medicare; Middle Aged; Occult Blood; Patient Preference; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Sigmoidoscopy; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2014.301877

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2014.301877_5

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.301877

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().