TOPLINE:
-
Patients are more likely to be screened for breast and colorectal cancer after becoming eligible for Medicare and are more likely to be newly diagnosed with lung, breast, prostate, or colorectal cancer during their first Medicare-covered encounter compared with the 5 years before or after.
METHODOLOGY:
-
Researchers used data from Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined limited dataset with more than 193 million patients across 208 organizations that use Epic electronic health records.
-
The population in this analysis included more than 20 million patients aged 60-70 with at least one non-Medicare encounter before age 65 and at least one Medicare encounter after age 65.
-
Researchers used billing codes to identify screenings and diagnoses.
TAKEAWAY:
-
Breast cancer screening rates increased by about 50% — from 20.5% in the year before Medicare coverage began to 30.4% in the year of a patient’s first Medicare encounter.
-
During the same time frame, colorectal screening rates increased by nearly 83%.
-
Patients were more likely to be newly diagnosed with lung, breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer as well as other conditions, including coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes, in the year of their first Medicare encounter.
IN PRACTICE:
Lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers are commonly diagnosed during a person’s first Medicare-covered encounter compared with the 5 years before or after, which “aligns with previous studies showing a ‘Medicare effect’ on the timing of cancer diagnoses,” the researchers said.
SOURCE:
-
The study was conducted by two teams that worked independently of each other. Results were published online at Epic Research in June 2023.
LIMITATIONS:
-
Study did not specify patients’ health coverage, if any, prior to their having Medicare coverage.
DISCLOSURES:
The authors did not declare any competing interests in relation to the study.
For more from Medscape Oncology, join us on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Read Full Article