Senators seek national coverage for supplemental breast imaging
Members of the U.S. Senate are seeking national coverage for ultrasound, MRI and other supplemental breast imaging—a goal long-sought by the radiology community.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Roger Marshall, MD, R-Kan., introduced the companion version of the Find It Early Act on Sept. 23. This comes after representatives reintroduced the same bill in the U.S. House in May 2023.
Sponsor and House Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and others have searched for a Republican co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, holding a legislative briefing in September. Now it appears they have found one in Kansas’ junior senator, an OB-GYN specialist from Great Bend.
Find it Early would require private payers, along with traditional Medicare and Advantage plans, to cover supplemental scans needed by patients predisposed to the disease or with dense breasts. The bill has drawn support from patient and provider advocacy groups including the American College of Radiology.
The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging celebrated the bill’s introduction in a news update published Wednesday.
“SNMMI strongly supports the Act, and our members have advocated for its strengthening by including molecular breast imaging as a screening option,” the society said Oct. 2. “Our team met with staff from both House and Senate sponsors to express our opinion and educate them on the importance of MBI as a screening option. SNMMI was pleased to learn that molecular breast imaging was included as a modality covered in the Senate version of the Find It Early Act.”
About 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 71% of these cases occur in individuals with dense breasts, SNMMI noted. However, imaging technologies such as MRI are often unavailable to patients because insurance does not cover them, necessitating high out-of-pocket expenses. Gaps in coverage can result in women paying over $1,000 for a breast MRI, according to Susan G. Komen.
House representatives also introduced the Find It Early Act in 2022, but it failed to gain traction in Congress. The Senate version has been referred to the to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for further review.
“We must pass the Find It Early Act,” Rep. DeLauro said at the congressional briefing last month. “Women’s lives are at stake, and we can’t take that lightly. You have my word that I will fight like hell to get this bill passed. I’m grateful for all of you here today, but we need your voices, your networks in order to put the pressure on this institution to do what it needs to do.”
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.