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To Screen Smokers for Lung Cancer or Not: Doctors Unsure
While Medicare is ready to pay for an annual spiral CT scan for long-term smokers, some doctors think it's an unnecessary procedure that might do more harm than good.
In February, Medicare announced that it would pay for an annual lung cancer screening test for certain long-term smokers. Medicare recipients between the ages of 55 and 77 years who have smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 30 years are now eligible for the annual test, known as a spiral CT scan.
Medicare's decision was partly a response to a 2011 study showing that screenings with the technique could reduce lung cancer deaths by 20%. Some images of lung cancer are clear cut. But in many others, a nodule on the screen turns out not to be cancer at all.
That translates into thousands of lives each year, says Dr Claudia Henschke, a radiologist who heads the lung and cancer screening program at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center. "It's a tremendous step forward," she says, primarily because lung cancer is such a big killer. The disease claims more than 150,000 lives in the U.S. each year, more than the next three cancers — breast, prostate and colon cancers — combined.
Read the complete article on NPR:
Navigating Health Policy in an Election Year: Insights From Dr Dennis Scanlon
April 2nd 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with Dennis Scanlon, PhD, the editor in chief of The American Journal of Accountable Care®, about prior authorization, price transparency, the impact of health policy on the upcoming election, and more.
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Prices for care at hospital trauma centers vary across hospitals; drug shortages reached a record high during the first quarter of 2024; although 3 of the biggest makers of asthma inhalers pledged to cap out-of-pocket costs for some US patients at $35, these do not apply to daily inhalers used by the youngest kids with asthma.
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Exploring Medicare Advantage Prior Authorization Variations
March 26th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the March 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on variations in prior authorization use across Medicare Advantage plans.
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The Biden administration recently launched the Global Health Security Strategy, a new effort to combat the spread of infectious diseases; lawmakers zeroed in on the risks of massive consolidation in health care during the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare hack; the FDA recently announced the recall of a pair of heart devices linked to numerous deaths and injuries.
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