Is my Skin Cancer Screening Exam free under Obamacare?

Certain “preventative” services are available to patients without co-payments, co-insurance or deductibles. Unfortunately, Skin Cancer Screening exams performed by experts in skin care are not included in those “preventative” services.

Preventative services are those listed as Level A or B by the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), independent experts in prevention and evidence based medicine. Unfortunately, the USPSTF does not recommend full skin examinations by experts in melanoma to prevent a disease that affects one in every fifty Americans and which kills a person every 57 minutes. Just think of that. In the time you spend in your dermatologist’s office for a screening exam, one person has died of melanoma.

Also, the USPSTF does not feel that counseling from skin cancer experts (i.e. sunscreen use and sun avoidance) effectively reduces skin cancer risk for the overall population. I believe that even if I can convince a few of my patients to protect their selves from melanoma causing radiation, that this is a positive.

Even though Skin Cancer Screenings are not considered Preventative Services by the Affordable Care Act, I believe that skin cancer screenings by experts in melanoma management cannot help but find more melanomas and improve the care of melanoma patients.