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Aetna agrees to cover new Pap test
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9-13-99 Blue Bell, Pa. Reversing a year-old decision, the nation's largest insurer announced it will cover new Pap test technology, giving millions of women access to more accurate cervical cancer screening. The recent reversal by Aetna U.S. Healthcare adds the ThinPrep Pap Test to its list of covered services at a cost of about $15 more per test. ThinPrep typically costs $25 to $30 per test, compared with about $10 for a conventional Pap test. ThinPrep, made by Cytyc Corp. in Boxborough, Mass., has been shown to significantly increase detection of cancer lesions. "There are more than 13 published studies of more than 250,000 patients showing improved detection rates," said Jeff Keene, director of corporate communications for Cytyc. "For high-grade lesions, detection rates improved by 50 to 200 percent." The FDA approved the test in 1996. Aetna's decision to cover ThinPrep leaves Kaiser Permanente as the last major insurer to deny coverage of the test. "For us, this is not just a coverage issue, it's an operational issue because we would have to train all laboratory and physician personnel," said Beverly Hayon, national director of media relations. "We are looking at this very carefully and hope to have a determination soon." Differences between the two tests lie in the processing, not in the way the test is performed. With the ThinPrep test, the sample is put in a vial rather than smeared on a slide. The vial is sent to a laboratory, where it is placed in the ThinPrep 2000 Processor. The processor, which is the heart of the new technology, is an automated slide preparation unit that produces uniform, thin-layer slides that are free from virtually all artifacts such as blood, mucus, and inflammation.
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