USA: some insurers pay women to get frequent mammograms

Instead, employers and health plans should offer incentives that reward the use of evidence-based decision aids

image of Woman-and-Mammogram
How widespread is the practice of incentivizing mammograms? Image Jon Krause.
  • A 53-year-old woman on Medicaid in Washington State who has never had a mammogram elects to get one in return for a $15 gift card.
  • A 35-year-old woman in Florida chooses to get her first mammogram because her insurer, Aetna, offers a $50 payroll check.
  • In Iowa, a 46-year-old woman who has been getting mammograms every other year opts to get them annually because Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield will pay her $50 to do so.

All three of these women have average risk profiles, and none have family members with breast cancer. Who made the right choice?

It’s a trick question. The real question is whether employers and health plans should really be offering incentives to women to get frequent mammograms.

… continue reading:  Insurer Rewards Push Women Toward MammogramsNY Times, JAN. 18, 2016.

Author: DES Daughter

Activist, blogger and social media addict committed to shedding light on a global health scandal and dedicated to raise DES awareness.

Have your say! Share your views

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: