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Recognize bowel cancer in time When does the health insurance company pay for the provision?
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in Germany, with about 26,000 deaths each year. According to experts, thousands of deaths could be prevented if more people took the screening. The health insurance companies pay for it - but only from a certain age.
Early detection can save lives
According to health experts, colorectal cancer is the third most common cause of prostate cancer and lung cancer and the second most common cause of cancer death in women after breast cancer. As with many other types of cancer, the sooner the disease is recognized, the higher the chance of recovery. There are various preventive examinations such as colonoscopy. These are especially important if there have already been colon cancer cases in the family. What should be known insured: The health insurance companies take the costs only under certain conditions.
If colorectal cancer is detected at an early stage, this increases the chances of recovery. The costs for the check-ups are taken over by the health insurance companies - but only under certain conditions. (Image: Wolfilser / fotolia.com) Thousands of deaths prevented
An analysis by scientists of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg shows why colonoscopy is so important.
According to the experts, the colonoscopy in Germany in the years 2008 to 2011 probably prevented more than 25,000 colorectal cancer deaths.
Early detection can save lives, because benign changes that may later result in malignant tumors can be removed directly in this study.
Preventive colonoscopy from 55 years
But when should you colonoscopy? On the one hand, colonoscopy is used as a diagnostic procedure, for example to clarify a medical suspicion.
In addition, the screening colonoscopy is paid from the age of 56 from the health insurance. However, if someone is charged with family, they bear the costs even in younger years.
According to experts, it would make sense to aim for a new age limit and recommend colonoscopy as early as 50 years old.
Test for hidden blood in the stool
As the Federal Association for Health Information and Consumer Protection informed in a message from the news agency dpa, the statutory health insurance from the age of 50 pay the cost of certain preventive care.
Insured persons can then have the hemoccult test done free of charge once a year - checking that they have blood in their stool.
If there is blood in it, this can be a first indication of a pathological change in the intestinal tissue. Loss of appetite and weight loss can also indicate a disease - and complaints such as cramps, abdominal pain, bloating and indigestion.
Although these symptoms can be harmless, but if they last longer, they should definitely be medically clarified.
In positive stool test rapidly for colonoscopy
Since April 1, 2017, the health insurance companies pay patients aged 50 and over once a year a new immunological stool test for colorectal cancer screening, which replaces the conventional chemical test and once again significantly improves the provision of care.
This Okkultbluttest can get, for example, the family doctor, then carry it out at home and deliver the samples in practice. About the result informed then a letter.
If the finding is positive, the person affected should necessarily speak immediately with his doctor, said the spokeswoman for the established gastrointestinal doctors, Dagmar Mainz, in the agency message.
However, blood in the stool does not necessarily mean that the patient has cancer, there are other causes for it. However, according to the experts in case of positive findings, a colonoscopy is necessary. Any existing precancerous lesions may be removed.
You do not have to be afraid of it either: "As a rule, colonoscopy is performed with sedation. That is, the patient may "oversleep" the examination. He has neither pain nor unpleasant flatulence, "write the gastrointestinal doctors on their website. (Ad)