A new Missouri law will require health insurance companies to pay the full cost of diagnostic breast imaging without charging patients a co-pay or deductible.
Gov. Mike Parson signed the bill, SB106, in July. The law will take effect on January 1, 2024.
Amy Patel, MD, medical director of the Breast Care Center at Liberty Hospital, led the effort to have the bill signed into law. She is also working with Missouri Rep. Brenda Shields and the Susan G. Komen organization on a federal law that would eliminate loopholes and discrepancies between states. The law only applies to insurance companies operating under the Missouri Constitution.
Patel previously led advocacy efforts for a 2018 law that required insurance companies to cover more breast cancer screening exams, as well as a 2020 law that required insurance companies to cover more examinations for women with a high risk of breast cancer.
![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=100&q=70&w=100)
![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
