Mammo clinic agrees to pay for re-screening

According to AuntMinnie, a mammography clinic in Lock Haven, PA that failed to properly calibrate its mammography machine has agreed with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to re-screen more than 1500 women for free. Those patients were seen over the two year period when calibration was not being done.The clinic discovered the problem in February during an internal review and reported the information to the DEP.There are a couple of interesting aspects to this case:

• The clinic blamed the problem on a single technologist, who has now been fired. No doubt the technologist is to blame, but the clinic also should have had an oversight mechanism in place that would have detected the problem sooner. Quality is produced by the system, not just an individual
• The settlement is part of a trend to provide money-back guarantees or to accept lower reimbursement when fixing avoidable complications