One Question

“It’s just one question: ‘Have you had your colon cancer screening?’” says Dr. Daniel Croymans, a primary care physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “March is colon cancer awareness month and the purpose of this is to increase awareness both for the general public as well as in the healthcare system. You don’t have to have an MD to have a conversation about colon cancer screenings. I believe our front desk staff, our clinic managers and our teams can work together to bring up the conversation about colon cancer screenings. If a patient comes in who is 50 or older, ask them if they’ve had a colon cancer screening done, or check the electronic medical record to see if the records are accurate. Whether it’s also a phone call from staff or a patient portal message, it’s still important for physicians to have this brief conversation and let patients know that if colon cancer is caught at stage one it’s 90 percent curative.”