Narcisse asks about screening wait times; Long on same-day mammograms and FIT tests
Narcisse asks about wait times for mammograms and colonoscopies compared to prior years. Long describes same-day mammogram access that reduces wait times and no-shows, and says FIT tests have dramatically cut colonoscopy wait times by focusing colonoscopies on high-risk patients.
Okay, what are the current average times for NYC care members seeking screening, mammograms, and colonoscopy, and how do those wait times compare to previous years?
So I'll start with mammograms and I'll talk about colonoscopies because that pertains to the fit test that we talked about.
Yes.
One of the things that we've started to do now, which has been proven very effective for increasing the proportion of our eligible women that receive mammograms, is offering same-day access.
So what I do for my patients is when they come and see me, if it's one of my patients that's going to need a mammogram in the coming months, I say, you're here today.
Can you take, do you have a little bit of time to stay?
And then I actually can make their appointment for them to receive their mammogram the same day that they see me.
That's actually solved a couple of problems.
It's actually reduced wait times, not only because we see a lot of people the same day, but also we were seeing a higher no-show rate because we'd schedule somebody out and then they wouldn't go, and then we'd have that slot that wasn't able to be filled.
So that enables us for patients that don't want to wait to have a sooner appointment, too, for their mammogram.
So same-day access, too.
I would say it's the most important thing we've done.
For colorectal cancer screening, our preferred test is the FIT test, which is that once-a-year test that we do in collaboration with our nursing members of our team.
And that doesn't take very much time.
We basically, our nurses educate them on the test, give them the test.
I see this happen every week.
And then they take the test themselves, and oftentimes they'll do it at home or in the clinic and give it right back to us.
For those that need a colonoscopy, there had been, you mentioned from before compared to now, there had been longer wait times for colonoscopies before when we were doing screening colonoscopies on everybody.
Right.
Now we focus on the two populations that you mentioned.
Somebody that's had a positive test in the past or a family history.
So that's how it caused a dramatic decrease in wait times.
Like approximately?
We can get back to you on the details, but it's very significant.
Okay.