New Jersey Women Wait Weeks for Mammograms.

2001 JAN 18 - (NewsRx.com) -- New Jersey women often have to wait several weeks to get mammograms because the centers that perform the tests for breast cancer can't afford to perform them, said New Jersey state radiologists.

Doctors blame health care insurers' reimbursement rates, which they say are insufficient, and malpractice fears for the delay in testing. In other states, mammography centers have scaled back, and in 1999 New York University Medical Center shut one of its two mammography services for financial reasons.

In New Jersey, "hospitals which at one point had been considering either expanding their hours or expanding their services or opening breast centers are not doing so because it doesn't pay," said Lawrence Swayne, president of the New Jersey Radiological Society.

Mammograms, which are recommended annually for women age 40 and over, are believed to decrease the risk of dying from breast cancer by as much as 40% by detecting tumors early. An estimated 6,400 New Jersey women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society.

Screening mammograms typically cost $75 to $150 to perform, while diagnostic mammograms, performed when a lump is found or another problem suspected, may cost well over $200. Recommended Medicare reimbursement rates are about $67 for a screening mammogram.

"People are kind of downsizing their mammo-practices, even though demand is high," said Edward Fobben, chairman of ...