Why Women Don’t Get Their Annual Breast Exams

Breast cancer screenings are recommended yearly for women over 40 and should be a routine part of a healthy lifestyle. 

Unfortunately, the CDC reported an 87% decline in the adherence of breast cancer screenings for April 2020, compared to the last five years. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, many more women have prolonged their breast cancer screenings.

Covid has undoubtedly impacted everyone’s lives, but there are other pressing issues as to why women opt out of their annual breast exams, even with their doctors urging them to get them.

High Costs and Lack of Insurance 

Annual breast exams are important because early detection leads to a better outcome after treatment. Insured women have the benefit of conducting yearly or bi-yearly mammograms with their health insurance plans. The Affordable Care Act requires that all health plans cover the cost of mammogram screenings every one to two years for women over 40, and Medicare and Medicaid cover them. The requirement is part of insurance reform’s action to make prevention coverage more accessible for women’s health and well-being.

Unfortunately, uninsured women are left with a high out-of-pocket cost when adhering to routine breast exams—a mammogram on average costs anywhere between $100 to $300. Therefore, the financial incurrence of regular breast exams is often a significant deterrent.

In 2019, an estimated 1 in 8 women of childbearing age was uninsured in the United States. In 2020, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 deaths globally.

False Negative and Positive Results

Another reason why women often dismiss annual breast exams is that mammogram results have been misleading. Mammograms are limited in their capabilities, and these screening tests are not 100% accurate. A false-negative can often look normal even though breast cancer is present, and a false-positive can look abnormal even though there’s no cancer in the breast. An estimated 1 in 5 screening mammograms does not find breast cancer that is present.

Whether a false-negative or false-positive, women who experience wrong results can get anxiety while awaiting more definite results, therefore decreasing their faith in the value of breast cancer screenings.

Discomfort While Getting a Mammogram 

Among one of the most prevalent reasons that women don’t get their annual breast exams, feeling pain or discomfort during a mammogram is common because of the compression that is applied to the breast during the exam. For some women, it is tolerable, but it is very uncomfortable for many women. Some of the factors that influence a women’s mammogram experience are:

• The size of her breasts.
• The positioning during the exam.
• Timing with her menstrual cycle.

Discomfort plays a major role in why women don’t get annual breast exams. It is often marked as an uncomfortable experience overall and deters women from wanting to follow through with their appointments.

A newer method of conducting breast exams aims to dissolve the disparities of not getting routine breast exams because of the uncomfortable experience. Using Koning Health’s Koning Breast CT (KBCT), there is no compression or discomfort while conducting the exam.

The Koning Breasts CT responds to many of the reasons that women don’t get their annual exams. Koning Health continues to work for a better future in women’s health and to change the world’s perspective on breast imaging. 

Learn more at koninghealth.com