Initial Experience With a Free, High-Volume, Low-Dose CT Lung Cancer Screening Program

The National Lung Screening Trial demonstrated a significant mortality benefit for patients at high risk for lung cancer undergoing serial low-dose CT. Currently, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and several United States–based professional associations recommend CT Lung screening for high-risk patients. In the absence of established reimbursement, the authors modeled and implemented a free low-dose CT lung cancer screening program to provide equitable access to all eligible patients. Elements of the program reported in this article include a decentralized referral network, centralized program coordination, structured reporting, and a patient data management system. The experience and initial results observed in this clinical setting closely match the performance metrics of the National Lung Screening Trial with regard to cancer detection and incidental findings rates. To eliminate health care disparities a vigorous lobbying effort will be needed to expedite reimbursement and make CT lung screening equally available to all patients at high-risk. The National Lung Screening Trial demonstrated a significant mortality benefit for patients at high risk for lung cancer undergoing serial low-dose CT. Currently, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and several United States–based professional associations recommend CT Lung screening for high-risk patients. In the absence of established reimbursement, the authors modeled and implemented a free low-dose CT lung cancer screening program to provide equitable access to all eligible patients. Elements of the program reported in this article include a decentralized referral network, centralized program coordination, structured reporting, and a patient data management system. The experience and initial results observed in this clinical setting closely match the performance metrics of the National Lung Screening Trial with regard to cancer detection and incidental findings rates. To eliminate health care disparities a vigorous lobbying effort will be needed to expedite reimbursement and make CT lung screening equally available to all patients at high-risk. Lung cancer causes more deaths among men and women in the United States than breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers combined, with approximately 450 people dying from lung cancer every day 1National Cancer InstituteGeneral information about non-small cell lung cancer.http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/non-small-cell-lung/healthprofessionalGoogle Scholar. Despite continuing advancements in surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, lung cancer remains a highly lethal disease, with 16% overall 5-year survival only marginally improved from 12% in the 1970s 2National Cancer InstituteSurveillance Epidemiology and End Results.http://seer.cancer.gov/faststats/selections.php? - OutputGoogle Scholar. Although primary prevention (smoking cessation) has saved countless lives by decreasing the rate of smoking from >40% in 1965 to 50 years old•>20 pack year smoking history•Current or former smokers (quit for any length of time)•One additional lung cancer risk factor Lahey Hospital 365: 395-409Crossref PubMed Scopus (6467) Google Scholar]. To fulfill what we felt was an ethical responsibility to provide equal screening access to all persons at high risk regardless of socioeconomic status and to encourage persons at high risk to present for screening, we decided to offer CT lung screening at no cost to patients until CMS and commercial insurers establish reimbursement on a broad scale. We feel this approach is consistent with the philosophy of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which seeks to eliminate health care disparities and barriers to preventative services 13US Department of Health and Human ServicesHealth disparities and the Affordable Care Act.http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2010/07/health-disparities.htmlGoogle Scholar. These considerations are at the core of our Rescue Lung, Rescue Life movement 14Rescue Lung, Rescue Life.https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rescue-Lung-Rescue-Life/213549102061234Google Scholar. Our institutional compliance department required that the program fulfill several conditions to be permitted to offer free CT lung screening. Objective patient qualification criteria needed to be established that would be followed without exception. No participant could be billed, not even those with insurance providing coverage for CT lung screening. Finally, at termination of the free offering, it must be stopped for all participants indiscriminately. Detailed business modeling of the program was performed before its inception and presented to senior management for ultimate program approval. The business model requires the availability of downtime on installed base CT scanners. Our PET/CT scanner typically is idle early in the morning, between the injection of radiotracer and scanning of our first patient. During this downtime, the PET/CT scanner can accommodate 5 CT lung screening examinations (25 appointments/week). An additional 10 appointments/week are available late in the day, when outpatient activity at the institution decreases and both technologist staff members and CT scanner capacity become available. To fully serve our patient population, we predicted that we would eventually need approximately 100 to 120 lung screening appointments/week and therefore estimated the cost of adding 1 dedicated 40-hour overnight and weekend shift (1 technologist and 2 technologist aides), which could accommodate as many as 200 additional screening slots per week. We assumed that overnight and weekend scan times would be acceptable to patients, considering the potential benefit of this examination performed at no cost. Although we do not charge for the initial or annual follow-up screening examinations, workup of any positive findings requiring downstream diagnostic CT examinations, clinical assessment, or intervention is billed to the patient's insurance in the customary fashion and provides the revenue stream that supports the program. It should be noted that a universal health insurance mandate is in effect in the state of Massachusetts 15Attorney General of MassachusettsMandatory health insurance.http://www.mass.gov/ago/doing-business-in-massachusetts/health-care/health-insurance-mandate.htmlGoogle Scholar. We used inputs from both the NLST data and NCCN Guidelines® to assess the potential financial impact of offering free lung screening. The resulting interactive, spreadsheet-based tool set created for this purpose allows the operator to perform a sensitivity analysis on the financial impact of multiple variables, including the percentage of examinations with positive results, the percentage of examinations with nodules 4 to 8 mm, the expected rate of uninsured individuals, radiologist and technologist cost, patient retention rate, annual patient enrollment, and cancer treatment revenue. Of note, at very high scanning volumes (>6,000 screenings/year) >1 full-time equivalent radiologist may be required to interpret the resulting examinations. By modeling our own situation, we estimated that in the first 2 years of our screening program, 60% to 80% of the revenue available to offset the cost of free screening would be derived from treating lung cancer. In years 3 to 10, the revenue derived from interval diagnostic LDCT follow-up of small pulmonary nodules and lung cancer treatment become equally important revenue sources. These financial models are included with many other documents on our lung screening program information CD-ROM, which is available at no cost to interested centers upon request. Lahey Hospital 355: 1763-1771Crossref PubMed Scopus (1435) Google Scholar]. Therefore, we needed to build the comprehensive lung cancer screening program infrastructure from the ground up. Accordingly, a lung cancer screening program coordinator and a patient navigator position were established. A radiology department working group consisting of a radiologist, an administrative director, CT, PET, and scheduling team leaders, and a PACS software engineer created the program elements listed in Table 1.Table 1CT lung screening program elementsItemPurposeToll-free number (855-CT-CHEST)Central acceptance and routing of program-directed patient inquiriesIntake formsUsed by general radiology schedulers to qualify patients and stratify them into one of the two NCCN high-risk groupsCall center scriptExplains to callers the importance of being asymptomatic at the time of screening and directs inquiries of those not meeting criteria for screeningFAQ documentExplains what to expect before, during, and after screening; gives the benefits and risks of screening; and provides information on smoking cessation at patients' levels of understandingCustom database applicationPulls patient-specific data from the RIS to facilitate and manage patient intake, scheduling, and follow-upPatient letter libraryResults-specific, standardized patient notification lettersProgram literaturePhysician-directed program information literatureScanning protocolsLow-dose lung cancer screening scanning protocolsNote: FAQ = frequently asked questions; NCCN = National Comprehensive Cancer Network; RIS = radiology information system. Open table in a new tab Note: FAQ = frequently asked questions; NCCN = National Comprehensive Cancer Network; RIS = radiology information system. We created a standardized CT lung screening reporting system (LungRADS) modeled on BI-RADS® 17American College of RadiologyBI-RADS Atlas.http://www.acr.org/Quality-Safety/Resources/BIRADSGoogle Scholar. In addition to diagnostic categories for lung nodules, the system includes a binary modifier (category S) to address the occurrence of clinically significant incidental findings observed on LDCT lung screening examinations (Fig. 1). LungRADS also incorporates an NCCN guidelines–based nodule lexicon, a structured reporting format, and a nodule size range methodology that reports mean size in 1-mm ranges (ie, 4-5 mm, 7-8 mm) rather than a discrete number (ie, 4, 4.3, or 5.6 mm). This approach respects the spatial resolution limitation of LDCT, decreases interobserver and intraobserver variability, and avoids guideline “trigger” points (4, 6, and 8 mm for solid nodules), which could result in confusion with regard to the appropriate follow-up interval (should a 6-mm nodule undergo 3-month or 6-month follow-up?). We also anticipate that reporting size ranges will reduce the need to explain to understandably concerned patients and physicians why a hypothetical 4.7-mm nodule which previously measured 4.3 mm has not definitively grown. LungRADS addresses multiple needs that should be common to all LDCT lung screening programs: •Facilitate adherence of radiologist recommendations to screening guidelines (in our specific case, NCCN Guidelines).•Facilitate structured, focused training of interpreting radiologists before credentialing.•Facilitate the communication of examination results among the various involved health care providers.•Allow periodic quality review to assess guideline adherence and ongoing evaluation of performance metrics such as positive screening rates.•Facilitate structured database storage and tracking of findings.•Automatically generate results-specific patient notification letters.•Facilitate appropriate follow-up examination coding.•Triage risk categories within the screened population and mechanize referral of the small number of patients (3%-4%) with suspicious findings (LungRADS category 4) to multidisciplinary team management. On the basis of our initial experience, we suggest that there is a significant opportunity for the ACR to convene experts in the field to develop a practice guideline for LDCT lung screening. In that context, we suggest that LungRADS or a similar structure reporting system would be a key component of such a guideline, providing common language to communicate lung screening examination results across providers and institutions. Primary care physicians (PCPs) are best positioned to help patients decide on the appropriateness of preventative care interventions such as lung cancer screening. They have knowledge of their patients' overall health and share the downstream responsibility of managing examination findings. For these reasons, we require PCP orders on all patients before screening. The PCP provider base represents an established and experienced decentralized preventive care network essential to operating a low-cost, high-volume screening program. 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