Since this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it reminds us of the importance of routine screening and preventative care. A focus on this issue was never more critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our standard mechanisms to ensure our patients' timely access to screenings and well visits.
We have already seen breast cancer screening rates start to drop among 2020. We also see significant wait times developing at many local mammography sites. We have surveyed our CMG affiliated radiologists, and they all have availability promptly for our patients. [Ed. comment: An updated listing of CMG providers was added to this revised newsletter.] For more detailed information, please click here.
I would also ask that you pay close attention to other screening and diagnostic tests and arrange for your patient to complete these before the end of the year. Of particular importance would be routine Hg a1c and nephropathy screening for our diabetics and routine lab screening for patients on hypertensives and other drugs. If possible, I would suggest ordering labs for those patients before the end of the year if a visit is not possible. A more detailed list of adult quality measures to focus on can be found here.
Finally, we see that annual physicals and annual well visit rates are also falling off sharply. These are essential visits for our patients, and the medical documentation and gap closure that occurs at those visits is a strong driver of our ACO success. If you cannot have patients come to the office, you can do a well-visit by telemedicine as an alternative before the year ends, and their benefit expires. The CMG population health team has a list of high-priority patients they will share with you, and we would ask you to expedite an in-person or telemedicine visit before the end of the year.
