||| FROM LENA KASSA for ORCAS SENIOR CENTER |||
Assured Imaging will be at Orcas Senior Center again this year on September 13-16 for mammograms. Although one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, nearly all breast cancer is treated successfully if detected early. Assured Imaging offers a relaxed atmosphere with a friendly, professional, all-female clinical staff.
All major insurance is accepted, and no referral is necessary. To schedule an appointment, contact Assured Imaging directly at 888-233-6121 or go to https://assuredimaging.com/orcas/ for online scheduling.
My personal opinion comes from the experience I had with Assured Imaging a few years ago and was supported by my physician. The mobile van does not have state-of-the-art imaging like that offered by Island Hospital. If you make an appointment at Island Hospital, you can have Mert’s Taxi take you to and from your appointment for free once you reach the mainland, so you are only out the cost of a passenger ferry ticket. For those with dense or partially dense breasts who might not get a straightforward clear image on the equipment Assured Imaging uses, the wait to get approval then a follow-up “diagnostic” mammogram at Island Hospital can be lengthy –it was nearly 3 months for me. Much better to have gone for the best equipment in the first place and not have months of angst over an uncertain result. I suppose the Senior Center’s rationale for having the mobile van is that some people will come there for the convenience factor who would put off a mainland trip, but I warn my friends, just go to the hospital. Their regular, screening mammograms are much quicker to schedule.
I think that’s a pretty cynical take on why the Senior Center offers this service.
While some people may use this service for the “convenience factor,” I think the vast majority use it because they have no health insurance and can’t afford to pay for the procedure or they have a disability that makes off-island travel extremely difficult.
And the service does gives peace of mind to seniors who can learn they don’t have cancer without having to leave the island. And if a mammogram shows something that needs further examination, then a trip off island will probably be necessary.
But whatever the reasons are that people use the service, it’s unfair and, again, cynical to imply seniors use the service because they’re too lazy to go off island.