The scientists evaluating the risks and benefits of mammography in saving women’s lives offered a revised recommendation on the procedure. Women, justifiably, are still reeling.

They fear the worst: the reduction or loss of an essential medical service, cemented in public health policy and insurance coverage, as a way to save money.
It’s time for everyone — from patients to insurance claims adjusters — to take a deep breath.
The new advice from the federal advisory panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, ought to be taken as just that: their best advice, based on careful study of mammography practice and outcomes.
Better statistics led the panel to conclude that the benefits of regular breast scans only begin to outweigh the potential harm after a woman turns 50, and to favor biennial tests over the current annual ones.
Most American women have been operating under previous dictates for regular mammograms a decade earlier.
This shouldn’t change the essential dynamic of good medical practice: the doctor-patient relationship, producing an informed decision on the best care for any specific case. The task force directive is not intended to yield a cookie-cutter template of care, because directives must be guided by a patient’s family history of cancer and other factors.
Federal health officials and many medical groups, including the American Cancer Society, say there’s no reason to change the way things are handled now — which is that most insurance companies will cover mammograms ordered for women in their 40s. And they disavow that the advisory signals a push for rationing in needed tests.
What the recommendation does signal is the need for a patient to get thorough guidance from her physician about the right course of action for her health, rather than blindly following a uniform, age-based prescription. If she needs the scan, she should get it.
This should be the standard for the patient, her doctor, her insurance company — and for the policymakers in Congress now busily debating health care reform.