In my Canadian province (not sure if the others do this), every year all women get sent a letter from the government reminding them to get mammograms. Because every citizen gets a government-issued health card that you give whenever you need anything medical done, people keep it updated with their current info and this is how they get your info to send out the letter.
In my understanding, Americans are reluctant to have the government intrude on their health care and would find this as intruding on their privacy. I’ve split the poll up into Americans and non-Americans to see how the responses may vary.
I said American, yes. The male equivalent would be getting a notice from the government that I should go in the have a digital rectal exam. Ewww. Doesn’t the government have some small nation they need to be bombing?
No, it wouldn’t bother me, and my health insurance company (back when I had health insurance) did the same thing. Now, my kids are covered through the state of Illinois’ low income health insurance, and they send me reminder cards for well child visits.
I can’t really see how it’s intrusive, since these are routine recommendations based on age and frequency (annually, bi-annually, etc.) and not based on my personal medical information.
Well, it’s not like they show up at my front door with a portable mammo machine, grab my boob, and smash it in there before I can even say, “Get the fuck off my porch!”
In Australia there are a number of programs that send health reminders. As soon as I hit 50, I got a letter and a kit from the National Bowel Screen group advising me to send them a ‘sample’ to rule out bowel cancer…(as it turned out, it was Positive, so I’m due for a colonoscopy in the next coupla weeks).
I should be getting my mammogram letter soon too!
Once you’ve had ONE pap smear and agree to go on the Register, they send you a reminder every couple of years (or when the next one might be due). It’s great for older geezers like me who forget where their car-keys are, let alone med appointments.
And no, I don’t feel it’s an invasion of privacy: it’s a bloody computer analysing dates really, no humans are involved until the testing is actually done.
The government already knows my age, gender and address. That’s all you need to send out a reminder about mammograms. They could do this in the US today if they wanted.
The OP doesn’t say if they send them out based on family history, personal medical history or whether or not you’ve gotten one this year.
Our office has a “machine” call you to remind you to come in for your annual exam. We don’t do mammograms here, but I’m sure our other clinics issue similar automated calls.
My father get’s reminders from his doctor about prostate checks. Key point it’s a reminder. Would you object to your doctor or insurance provider sending you a reminder to get your prostate checked? In this case it just so happens that the insurance provider is the government. And it’s not as if the government is ordering it’s citizens to report for a medical exam on pain of imprisonment. Which BTW is something that really happened to my father and uncles (& entire generation of males) during the '60s.
AFAIK, it’s a blanket letter based on age. I didn’t know they sent them out, so when I got my first one I called my mom and she said that the government just sends them out to everyone every year.
