FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 8, 2002
SCHUMER UNVEILS PLAN TO COMBAT WANING MAMMOGRAM AVAILABILITY
IN WESTCHESTER
As area closures threaten mammogram access, Senator details
plan to improve local availability, decrease wait times for breast
cancer screenings, attract more doctors to field
Standing with local breast cancer survivors and doctors from the
Westchester Imaging Center, US Senator Charles E. Schumer today
detailed a plan to improve the low Medicare reimbursements that
are forcing many Westchester County mammography facilities to turn
patients away or discontinue services altogether. Breast cancer
is the second most common cancer affecting women in the US, with
over 200,000 new cases diagnosed each year.
Many centers are cutting back on the number of screenings they
perform while others are starting to experience longer delays due
to the low Medicare reimbursement rate they receive from the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The average Medicare reimbursement
for a screening lags far behind the actual cost of the procedure,
forcing centers to pick up the extra cost. According to the American
College of Radiology (ACR), the national average cost to perform
a mammogram is $86.50 in a doctor's office and $124.54 in a hospital,
while the current Medicare reimbursement rate is only $81.81 per
screening, regardless of where it is performed.
"Thousands of women across Westchester County could be forced
to wait months for mammograms because there aren't enough radiology
centers that can afford to screen them," said Schumer. "The
bottom line is that we need to raise reimbursement rates, which
would keep mammography centers open and provide incentives to attract
the next generation of radiologists."
With more women getting mammograms on a regular basis and low Medicare
reimbursements forcing local mammography facilities to turn patients
away or discontinue services altogether, facilities in Westchester
County are, in some cases, forced to make women wait months before
screening them:
Waiting times for mammograms at White Plains Hospital Center
have almost doubled over the last year, with women forced to wait
four to five months for a routine screening. The hospital performed
more than 9,000 mammograms in 2001, and doctors expect that number
to rise substantially in 2002.
As of December 31, 2001, Westchester Gynecologists and Obstetricians
(White Plains) was forced to stop offering breast cancer screening
tests altogether because the practice was losing too much money
performing the exams. According to the ACR, 40 mammography programs
throughout New York State have closed since March 2001.
In the two and a half years since the Sound Shore Medical
Center of Westchester opened its Breast Center in New Rochelle,
average mammograms performed per month have jumped from 90 to 220
and wait times for screening mammograms have increased from an average
of one to two weeks a year ago to the current average wait of one
month.
Early detection is the key to treating the disease effectively
and routine mammograms reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer
by 40 percent. These shortages are putting thousands of Westchester
County women at risk because delayed diagnoses often result in tumors
being detected at less treatable stages.
Schumer is co-sponsoring legislation with Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA),
the bill's primary sponsor, that would significantly raise Medicare
reimbursement rates so that they more accurately reflect the cost
of the procedure in New York, help struggling radiology centers
remain open, and increase the number of qualified technicians who
perform breast cancer screenings.
"Facilities across the state lose money every day performing
these life-saving screenings," Schumer said. "If action
is not taken soon to reverse this trend, it will be a devastating
blow to women's health."
The widening gulf between reimbursement rates and the actual cost
of the procedure has already led nearly 400 mammography programs
nationwide to close since March of last year, according to the ACR.
The average increase in the Medicare rate 1.5% per year between
1997 and 2000 has lagged far behind the medical inflation
rate. Moreover, since other government insurance programs and private
insurers base their reimbursement rates on Medicare, low Medicare
rates create a ripple effect which lead mammography clinics to receive
insufficient reimbursements from private and government insurers
alike.
Finally, the low rates have also made it difficult for mammography
centers to retain radiologists and technicians, and have discouraged
medical students from pursuing careers in radiology.
Schumer and Harkin's legislation improves access to mammograms
by:
Increasing Medicare reimbursement rates for screening mammograms.
While Medicare reimbursement rates have increased from $69 to $82
since the bill was originally drafted, new data shows that the cost
of performing this procedure is significantly higher when performed
in a hospital. With the closure of many stand-alone radiology clinics
further increasing the burden on hospitals to provide mammography
screenings, Schumer said that he will work this year to update the
bill and establish reimbursement rates that more accurately reflect
the cost of this procedure.
Increasing Medicare Graduate Medical Education funding for
additional radiology residency slots in an effort to get more students
to pursue careers in mammography and increase funding for the Allied
Health Profession program to increase the supply of radiologic technicians
who perform the actual mammograms.
Instructing the General Accounting Office to study Medicare's
reimbursement rate structure for gender-specific procedures to investigate
whether rates are equitable across gender lines.
"We need to push this bill through Congress and get it to
the President's desk immediately because when it comes to treating
breast cancer, every day counts," Schumer said.
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