October continues to serve as a critical time for raising awareness about breast cancer screening and early detection. With breast cancer remaining the most common cancer among women—affecting approximately one in eight women during their lifetime—health care providers hold a pivotal position in encouraging proactive screening measures.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) maintains its recommendation and NCQA is updating its HEDIS measure specification to include the requirement for women ages 40 to 74 to receive screening mammograms every two years, emphasizing the life-saving potential of early detection.
Addressing persistent health disparities
Despite ongoing efforts, significant disparities in breast cancer screening rates persist across racial and ethnic groups. Recent data continues to show variations in mammography screening rates, with barriers including:
- Access to care: Geographic and financial obstacles
- Cultural factors: Language barriers and health beliefs
- Provider communication: Need for culturally sensitive outreach
- Insurance coverage gaps: Understanding of benefits and coverage
These disparities underscore the critical importance of targeted patient outreach, comprehensive education initiatives, and improved access to care programs that ensure equitable opportunities for timely breast cancer screening and treatment across all communities.
Understanding benefits coverage
Most of our health plans provide coverage for screening mammograms at no cost to women 40 and older when utilizing in-network providers.
Essential resources
- Quality Improvement Toolkits: Comprehensive resources for enhancing screening programs
- USPSTF guidelines: Latest evidence-based screening recommendations
- CDC educational materials: Patient education resources and risk factor information
As a PCP, one of your key roles is to act as an information resource about all the medications your patients take. Many of our members take several medicines, vitamins and supplements from different sources. This can lead to duplicate therapy or potentially adverse interactions, especially if they have multiple prescribers.
Facilitating memorable conversations
To facilitate memorable conversations about medications, many offices ask patients to bring all their medications, vitamins, supplements, herbal remedies and other products they are taking to an office visit at least once per year. During that visit, the PCP, a nurse or pharmacist can:
- Review the medications
- Identify any concerns with the medications
- Ensure the patient is taking them as prescribed
- Make sure the patient understands each product's purpose
Techniques for improving patient recall
To help patients remember conversations about their medications, you can use practical techniques like the teach-back method. This involves asking patients to repeat what they’ve learned in their own words, which helps uncover any gaps in understanding and confirms they truly grasp the information. Additionally, reviewing any changes to medications at the end of the visit, and clearly marking these changes on the after-visit summary, reinforces the details and helps patients recall important updates.
Patient resources
Educational handouts and flyers are another great way to help patients remember conversations about their medications, and they can help PCPs and staff facilitate these conversations. We have several flyers (available in English and Spanish) about medication management that can be shared with your patients. Look for the Medications and Member Experience with Medications category in our Quality Improvement Toolkit.