Causes for the Increasing Mammographer Shortage
This blog is now focused on laboratory specialties. This article is here for your information only, as jobs are longer provided for any radiation technician specialties.
Clinics across America are seeing longer waiting times than ever before, and appointments are being scheduled months in advance. This can causedelays in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Patients also experience more anxiety about mammograms, because they are having to wait so long to schedule them, and then they wait longer in the waiting room too. The cause of these increased wait times is due to the fact that mammography is simply not very profitable. Because mammography is not profitable, there are shortages of mammographers. Radiologists are less likely to choose to specialize in mammography, and hospitals are less likely to assign radiologists to to mammography if the mammography does not pay for itself. Research is also suffering, because there aren’t many radiologists who will research mammography knowing they will lost money.
This is very sad, because women who are 40 years old or older and who get regular mammograms are at a 30-40% less likely to die from breast cancer. Demand for mammograms is high, because so many women now know the value of seeing a mammographer.
The reason that mammography is not cost effective for most hospitals is that the US government sets mammography reimbursement rates for reasearchers below the costs of performing a study. Medicare pays about 67 dollars for a screening mammogram and 80 dollars for a diagnostic mammogram. This is compared to 170-225 dollars that women with no insurance would pay. These medicare reimbursement rates have only increased about 1% per year, and they have not kept up with inflation, necessary replacements of outdated equipment, expenses due to federal regulation, and quality assurance costs.
Learn about hiring a mammographer, or finding a job as a mammographer.
Source:
- Farnsworth, Leslie (2000) Mammography at the Crossroads: Experts Fear Technique’s Future in Jeopardy. Medscape Today, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/420463
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