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Study connects physician visits to cancer screenings
Tests are more likely with one doctor, it finds
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Published: October 14, 2008
The longer that a patient has been seen by the same primary-care physician, the more likely the patient is to be screened for certain kinds of cancer, according to an N.C. Medicaid study released yesterday.
The study evaluated the medical records of nearly 2,000 state Medicaid recipients age 50 and older in 2004.
The study was published this week in Archives of Internal Medicine. It found that about half of the Medicaid recipients had received screening tests for colorectal, breast and cervical cancers, which if detected early can be treated with a high rate of success.
Patients who had been seeing the same practitioner for more than five years were twice as likely to be screened for those cancers as those who had been with a practitioner less than two years.
Annette DuBard, the lead author of the study, said that a long-term history enables a physician "to build rapport with the patient and to appropriately address cancer-screening options." DuBard serves on N.C. Medicaid's Quality Evaluation and Health Outcomes unit.
"Too often, discussions about preventive-health measures get edged out by the more immediate health concern that led to the visit to the doctor," DuBard said.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said that the study reinforces the value of managed-care networks for state Medicaid recipients.
The ACCESS/Community Care of North Carolina networks operate in every county, with about half of the state's 1.7 million Medicaid recipients represented.
The community-care network encourages Medicaid recipients to make regular visits to a primary-care provider to improve their odds of early diagnosis of asthma, cancer, diabetes and another chronic illnesses, as well as better treatment for those chronic conditions.
The agency said that millions of dollars in health-care costs can be saved annually by preventing easily treated conditions from worsening, and through avoidance of expensive emergency room visits.
Dr. William Lawrence, another author of the study and a former director of the state's Medicaid program, said that the percentage of Medicaid recipients getting regular screenings should rise as more patients become aware of the community-care network.
"We are trying to prevent these screenings from falling through the cracks," DuBard said. "It's not that doctors don't care to recommend cancer screenings. But only so much can be accomplished in a typical 15-minute visit if there is not an intent to recommend screenings."
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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