Doctors at UVA Health and the Central Virginia Health Services are trying to get their patients caught up on cancer screenings that were canceled or missed during the pandemic. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The pandemic's burden on our health system has meant that a lot of non-emergency procedures, such as cancer screenings, were delayed – for some people, indefinitely.
CINDY YOSHIDA: So, across the country, when COVID shut down the hospital systems all over, we did see a marked decline in screenings of all types.
Dr. Cindy Yoshida leads the colonoscopy program at UVA Health.
YOSHIDA: And when we talk about colorectal screening, in that period between March and June of 2020, we saw a 90% decline in all of colorectal cancer screening. And it's really predicted – a number of people have done some modeling studies – that that even short period of time that we cut back on screening is going to lead to thousands more colon cancers over the next decade.
The hospital did already have one partnership in place that's working to counteract that, with the nonprofit Central Virginia Health Services. They operate 20 health clinics across the state, including ones in Charlottesville and southern Albemarle County. Clinical Director Dr. Randy Bashore said that, in the past, when uninsured patients have positive "FIT" tests for blood in their stool, there have been financial and bureaucratic barriers to getting them a colonoscopy.
RANDY BASHORE: And that had been a very significant problem and issue, that we would have to send our patients to UVA but have to go through all the financial screening.
He said that, thanks to the collaboration with UVA, since 2019, they've been able to get colonoscopies done for 52 uninsured patients, and send out FIT tests to every uninsured client across the organization.
