Seniors’ access to a screening colonoscopy is at risk and YOU can help!

We need you to continue to add your voice and urge your Representative to support H.R. 4120! Simply submit an Action Alert.

H.R. 4120, the Removing Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening Act of 2012, will fix a regulation that requires Medicare beneficiaries to pay coinsurance when their screening colonoscopy involves the removal of a polyp. The current policy can cost patients $100 to $300 and serve as a deterrent to screening.

We need cosponsors for this legislation if it is to pass into law & YOU can help!

Representative Charlie Dent

Legislation was introduced in Congress today that will correct an oversight to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires Medicare beneficiaries to pay coinsurance when their screening colonoscopy also involves the removal of a polyp or cancer. When a screening colonoscopy turns therapeutic, the cost to the Medicare patient is significant – $100 to $300 – and it could serve as a deterrent to screening.

The legislation, Removing Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening Act of 2012 (H.R. 4120), was introduced by Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania.

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Dr. William I. Wolff

Dr. William Wolff died on August 20 at his home Manhattan.  He was 94.

In the mid 1960′s Dr. Wolff, working with his colleague Dr. Hiromi Shinya at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, began studying how fiber optics and a long, soft, flexible tube might make it possible to see inside the entire length of the colon.  Together they developed  the first colonoscope.

In 1969, Dr. Shinya invented a wire snare and electrocautery making it possible for the team to remove polyps during a colonoscopy.

By 1973, Dr. Wolff and Dr. Shinya had performed over 2,000 colonoscopies in the Endoscopy Unit at Beth Israel, demonstrating that in skilled hands they could be done safely.  Their use of a wire loop snare and electrocautery made it possible to remove most polyps during the colonoscopy itself and avoid risky abdominal surgery.

Last year more than 1.6 million colonoscopies were done in the United States, preventing tens of thousands of future colon cancers.

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When bowel preps are not good, doctors may miss almost half of adenomas (polyps) during colonoscopy.  Worse, they may miss nearly 1 in 3 large adenomas, the most worrisome kind.

The bad news is that bowel prep may be suboptimal in as many of one in four patients.

Because of the danger of missing an adenoma after poor bowel prep, some doctors will repeat the colonoscopy, particularly if they found at least one adenoma during the first exam.   Read the rest of this entry »

After a normal colonoscopy when no polyps are found, guidelines call for a repeat test in 10 years.

However, almost half of Medicare patients with a negative colonoscopy got another exam within 7 years, and for one in four there was no clear evidence that they needed one.

Because colonoscopies have real risks and are expensive, over-testing can be both dangerous and costly. Given limited numbers of physicians who do colonoscopies, unecessary procedures add to long waiting lists for screening and for necessary follow-up exams.

Although Medicare regulations call for reimbursement only after 10 years in cases where the first procedure didn’t find a problem, payments are being made for earlier exams.  In fact, Medicare denied payment for only 2 percent of colonoscopies for which there was no clear indication of need. Read the rest of this entry »