Survey shows mammogram prices steady; assistance available
Latisha Dinish faced a diagnosis of fast-growing breast cancer with a big extra worry. She needed treatment, but had no way to pay for it. She was unemployed and uninsured. “It was one horrible mess,” said Dinish, 41, of Detroit.
Friends and a state welfare worker referred her to the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.
Last year, the institute helped 700 women, including Dinish, pay for breast cancer screening and treatment with money raised from Detroit’s annual Race for the Cure walk and run. The money is limited to women whose cancer is found through routine screening at the institute.
For a year, Karmanos has paid the COBRA for Dinish’s health insurance, which covers her chemotherapy and radiation.
A former supervisor for an automotive supply firm, Dinish hopes more programs are made available to out-of-work women like her.
“Breast cancer is an epidemic; women need help,” said Dinish, whose breast cancer spread to 16 lymph nodes under her arm. She tells women to find some way to get a mammogram.
While there’s still no single program that helps all women, more Michigan mammography facilities offer discounts or are holding down prices. An annual mammography guide, produced since 2001 by the Detroit Free Press and the American Cancer Society’s Great Lakes Division, also provides help for women shopping for an affordable mammogram.
Help with costs available; many eligible
Can’t afford a mammogram?
Dozens of Michigan mammography facilities are offering discounts to uninsured and underinsured women or holding down prices to help women get their annual test.
“We can’t let women go without just because they can’t afford it,” said Dr. Randy Hicks, co-owner and vice president of Regional Medical Imaging.
The large Flint and northern Oakland County radiology practice offers women who are uninsured or underinsured a $62 conventional film-screen mammogram and a $107 digital mammogram.
Regional Imaging centers began offering the discounted rates earlier this year because of the recession, Hicks said.Elsewhere, centers are holding down costs or barely raising them, despite installing costly new digital mammography equipment, according to an annual survey of 313 Michigan mammography facilities conducted by the Detroit Free Press and the American Cancer Society, Great Lakes Division.
The survey also provides information about waiting times for appointments; policies on acceptance of Medicare patients; wheelchair access, and other issues. (For the full survey, go to freep.com/data.)
Statewide, the median cost of a film-screen, or so-called analog, mammogram is $171, and $325 for a digital test, the survey found.
Prices for a film-screen mammogram are lower than the state median in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, and vary widely center to center. Some are as low as $60 for a film-screen test; digital exams can exceed $600, the survey found.