Cancer screening in Medicaid patients found to be inadequate

Less than half of patients enrolled in Medicaid have been undergoing recommended screening for colorectal, cervical and breast cancer, according to data recently published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote that “despite widespread endorsement of U.S. Preventive Services Task Force cancer screening guidelines, little more than half of eligible North Carolina Medicaid recipients 50 years and older received a documented recommendation to undergo cancer screening from their primary care physicians.”

The medical records of 1,951 Medicaid recipients aged 50 years or older were reviewed to determine whether physicians had recommended and patients had received cancer screening exams.

The PCPs documented recommending colorectal cancer screening to 52.7% of patients, breast to 60.4% and cervical to 51.5%. Patients followed through on the recommendations 28.2% of the time for colorectal cancer screening, 31.7% for mammography within two years and 31.6% for Pap testing within three years.

The researchers combined data from medical records and Medicare claims and found evidence of adequate screening in 45.3% of patients for colorectal cancer, 50.5% for breast cancer and 49.5% for cervical cancer.

Arch Intern Med. 2008;168:2014-2021.