UNDERSTANDING YOUR INSURANCE COSTS
The American Cancer Society recently published an article about understanding your insurance coverage and how it affects the screenings that you get. Many women misunderstand their insurance coverage and fear large out-of-pocket expenses. They avoid screening mammographies, based on this misinformation. While several studies have been published identifying cost as a deciding factor for whether a woman gets screened or not, there are no studies on womens' perception of mammogram cost and insurance coverage. It's an interesting article and demonstrates another barrier to high quality, low cost care for many women. "Perceptions of Insurance Coverage for Screening Mammography among Women in Need of Screening"
THE CANCER PROJECT
The Cancer Project is a joint venture of physicians, researchers and nutritionists who want to educate the public on the benefits of a healthy diet with relation to cancer. They offer recipes, cooking classes and a host of other materials. Check them out at http://www.cancerproject.org/
NATIONAL BREAST CANCER COALITION
NBCC has been the leader in breast cancer advocacy for years. A glance at their position papers and recently breaking news updates are worth a special visit to their website. For those of you who are not familiar with NBCC, their site will alter the way you think about breast cancer funding and research. For those who are familiar with their work, this could renew your commitment to advocacy work. http://www.stopbreastcancer.org/bin/inde...
ADVERTISING and PRESCRIPTIONS "Direct to consumer" advertising is a billion dollar business. Patient requests have a large influence on physician prescribing practices. While some argue that advertising can help the public get treatment for conditions that are often under-diagnosed, others feel that this media blitz can make people think that they need to take medications that really are not necessary for their health and well-being. A randomized trial was done, having actors play the role of patients. The results basically showed the patient receiving the prescription drug of their choice. What this means is that the advertising campaigns do not necessarily mean you get the best medical practice scenario. The authors suggest that either the pharmaceutical companies do more educational pieces in the media, rather than promotional or that the government impose a tax or surcharge on this type of advertising to counteract the ads with public service announcements about drug effects and usage. While this sounds reasonable, I think back on public service announcements I have seen and media ad campaigns - which do you think are more effective? Ad campaigns are glitzy, upbeat and make you want whatever product they are pushing. PSAs are generally informative, but not always shown during prime time TV watching periods and do not usually grab you the way commercials do. Since many of the people who really need some of the prescription medications are those who can least afford them, it appears that the ad campaigns are almost a cruel joke. The United States (once New Zealand passes its ban) is the only industrialized country that allows such advertising, does not limit drug price increases and has no national policy guaranteeing health care. It's the type of article that should make you want to take action. Here's the link. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st... The full article can be found in the April 27 edition of
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