Report shows breast screening dropped during COVID-19 pandemic

A new report from CareJourney shows that between 2020 and 2021, more than 11% of women missed regular screening mammography exams compared with 2018 to 2019.

However, women who received care from physicians in value-based care structures such as accountable care organizations were 1.8 times more likely to undergo mammography screening than women treated by physicians who were not in these frameworks, the report found.

The survey included data from the Medicare fee-for-service population, CareJourney said.

Survey results may indicate a coming crisis, CareJourney president Aneesh Chopra said in a statement.

"The data show that we could be facing another crisis in women's health in the coming years if we don't take proactive measures to identify women at risk and get them back on schedule for mammograms and other routine screenings," he said.