Pressure grows on insurers to cover lung cancer screenings

Pressure is growing on healthcare plans to cover lung cancer screenings for at-risk individuals in the wake of recent reports that conclude the low-cost tests could save thousands of lives a year.

The policy journal Health Affairs on Monday published a "first-of-its-kind actuarial study" that found thousands of deaths could be prevented every year at a cost of less than $1 per insured person per month. The results confirm research by the National Cancer Institute, which last year published results showing that screening with computed tomography — CT scans — can reduce the risk of dying from lung cancer. 

"This study offers compelling evidence that through earlier disease detection, lung cancer screening of high-risk individuals has the potential not only to save thousands of lives, but to yield tremendous long-term health care cost savings," Gail Rodriguez, the executive director of the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA), said in a statement Tuesday. "This analysis reinforces the value of advanced medical imaging technologies to improve patient outcomes and drive down health care spending."

In the wake of the government-funded National Cancer Institute trial last year, insurance giant WellPoint announced that it would start covering the tests for at-risk smokers and longtime former smokers over the age of 55. Other insurers have said they're waiting for more studies and new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Lung cancer is currently in the first stage of the task force's eight-step process for updating a recommendation or to add a new recommendation based on new research. The task force concluded in 2004 that "the evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against screening asymptomatic persons for lung cancer with either low dose computerized tomography (LDCT), chest x-ray (CXR), sputum cytology, or a combination of these tests."

---