Evaluation of a phone intervention to promote mammography in a managed care plan

Mammography was significantly more common among women who received the phone intervention (46%) than among those who did not (30%). The mammography rate in the intervention group is slightly higher than those found in a previous study, which used either a brief reminder letter (42%) or telephone counseling (29%). This study, unlike the previous study, used a scheduling component. The intervention was delivered by HMO scheduling staff, who reached nearly 70% of the intervention subjects they attempted to call in an average of 1.8 calls. Half the intervention subjects who were reached scheduled a mammogram, and 79% of these women subsequently obtained a mammogram. The intervention cost per additional mammogram obtained was $18. This includes the administrative cost only, and not the medical cost of mammography. There were no diagnoses of breast cancer among the 472 intervention subjects who obtained a mammogram. However, on the basis of the rate of diagnoses (21 to 34 per 10,000) estimated by Harris and Leininger, very few diagnoses (1.0 to 1.6) would be expected in a population of this size.