The month of October has been designated as breast cancer awareness month in the United States and many other countries. It is a month whereby pink coloration dominates everywhere to indicate a campaign for breast cancer patients.
The BayCare Clinic, a physician-owned specialty-care clinic based in Aurora and a member of the Aurora BayCare Medical Center is organizing its own breast cancer awareness campaigns in a special way – by educating patients about breast reconstruction options and law among other things.
Many breast cancer patients are not aware that federal law mandates coverage of breast reconstruction for all breast cancer patients, and it does not matter that the reconstruction procedure is delayed until after cancer treatments.
Prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer, many women are not aware of this law; and the BayCare Clinic is tasking itself with helping women understand their breast reconstruction rights.
The clinic is determined this month of October to not only promote the federal law that provides coverage for breast reconstruction needs for breast cancer patients, but also to educate patients and potential patients on how to access medical care options among other things.
A Cancer.org report titled “Cancer Facts & Figures 2015” states that about 232,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year in the US, and this includes about 2,400 new cases of men. About 41,000 breast-cancer related deaths are expected to occur this year.
With early treatment methods, breast cancer patients have better chances of surviving and not dying; and death rates for women patients have steadily decreased since 1989 due to knowledge campaigns and new medical insights. Celebrating survivors and sharing their stories also tend to boost the collective psyche of the community involved in a fight against the degenerative disease.
