Delegates Call for Education on USPSTF Guidelines

Recently enacted health care reform legislation that calls for insurance plans to cover evidence-based services that have A or B grades in United States Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF, recommendations, led delegates to the 2010 National Conference of Special Constituencies, or NCSC, to question whether physicians understand the USPSTF grades. They urged the Academy to develop relevant education resources for members and their patients.

Specifically, the Reference Committee on Health of the Public and Science supported a resolution May 1 that calls for the AAFP to:

The reform bill's provisions for coverage of preventive health services, which also include vaccinations recommended by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, take effect Sept. 23.

Anne Kittendorf, M.D., of Dexter, Mich., who co-authored the resolution, said some tests that physicians have routinely ordered in the past might no longer be covered. For example, USPSTF gives an I grade to screening men younger than 75 for prostate cancer.

"I think there are a lot of practicing physicians that don't understand the USPSTF guidelines system," Kittendorf said.

Here are brief definitions of the USPSTF grades:

Kittendorf said physicians should encourage patients to contact their insurers to make sure certain services are covered.

Physicians will need to be informed as well, said Rachel Franklin, M.D., of Oklahoma City. Franklin, associate professor in the department of family and preventive medicine at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, said physicians might need to get prior authorization for certain services that aren't recommended by USPSTF, such as mammography more than once every two years.

"There are a lot of things we do in response to what we believe are our patients' reasonable concerns or requests that could potentially be universally uncovered as a result of this legislation," she said.