According to a recent article in the Washington Post, early data shows recent upticks in utilization of some preventive services by Medicare patients, presumably triggered by provisions in the healthcare reform law encouraging use of preventive care. Medicare enrollees can now obtain wellness checkups and screening tests for cancer and other serious conditions at no cost, for example.

Interestingly, the article notes that so far only the more general procedures, wellness exams, have seen significant bumps in utilization. At this early stage, it appears that utilization of more invasive screening procedures such as mammograms or colonoscopies is relatively flat even with the removal of cost sharing under health reform.

This could well speak to the heart of the preventive challenge itself, and certainly raises many questions: Will we ultimately see utilization remain stubbornly close to current benchmarks for some procedures? If removing copays is not sufficient, what kinds of incentives are necessary to get people to use the clinically-recommended levels of services? Where does education fit into the larger goal of persuading people to use them? If the right kind of utilization is incented, what will be the long-term cost implications?

Moving forward, it will be more important than ever for providers and carriers to attempt to answer these questions. Our recent report "Benchmarking Preventive Care Utilization" points out that there are "numerous problems that actuaries and other analysts may expect to encounter as they attempt to set baselines and benchmarks for preventive services"--not the least of them is agreeing on and communicating a definition of "preventive services" in the first place. Other issues are related to claim coding complexities, billing, medical innovations, considerations for "at-risk" patients, and finding ways to distinguish screening and diagnostic procedures.

The Washington Post article is only an early indicator, and it introduces more questions than answers. The march toward increased use of preventive care will be one of the more interesting aspects of reform to monitor as the American healthcare system goes through this period of evolution.