Timeliness of diagnostic evaluation for postmenopausal bleeding: A retrospective cohort study using claims data

Xiao Xu, Ling Chen, Marcella Nunez-Smith, Mitchell Clark and Jason D Wright

PLOS ONE, 2023, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Background: Postmenopausal bleeding (PMB) is a common gynecologic condition. Although it can be a sign of uterine cancer, most patients have benign etiology. However, research on quality of diagnostic evaluation for PMB has been limited to cancer patients. To extend this research, we examined the timeliness of diagnostic evaluation for PMB among patients with benign conditions. Methods: Using the 2008–2019 MarketScan Research Databases, we identified 499176 patients (456741 with commercial insurance and 42435 with Medicaid insurance) who presented with PMB but did not have gynecologic cancer. For each patient, we measured the time from their PMB reporting to the date of their first diagnostic procedure. The association between patient characteristics and time to first diagnostic procedure was examined using Cox proportional hazards models (for the overall sample and then stratified by insurance type). Results: Overall, 54.3% of patients received a diagnostic procedure on the same day when they reported PMB and 86.6% received a diagnostic procedure within 12 months after reporting PMB. These percentages were 39.4% and 77.1%, respectively, for Medicaid patients, compared to 55.7% and 87.4%, respectively, for commercially insured patients (p

Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0289692

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289692

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