Benefits Of Medicare Paid Mammography Lag For Black Women

When Medicare began paying for older women to undergo preventive mammograms in 1991, doctors expected breast cancer mortality rates to drop. Breast cancer deaths did decrease, but new research has unveiled a discrepancy: African American women as a group do not benefit as much as white women.

Breast cancer death rates for the two ethnic groups used to be nearly identical.

"It looks like the implementation of the Medicare benefit did a lot of good, but the benefits may not have accrued to everyone equally. White (death) rates declined faster," said study lead author Dr. Robert Levine, professor in the family and community medicine department at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.

MedicalNewsToday