Are Women Being Told All Their Options Before And After Breast Cancer Surgery?

A breast cancer diagnosis can present a woman with countless uncertainties. With all of the distress associated with a diagnosis, a woman deserves to know every option that’s available to her.

When breast cancer is diagnosed, there are a few treatment methods available. She can have the lump removed (lumpectomy), or she can opt to have one or both breasts removed (mastectomy).

An additional option — that many are unaware of — is to have both breasts reconstructed.

The Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (WHCRA) ensures insurance coverage for certain procedures for breast cancer surgery and reconstruction.

If a woman undergoes a mastectomy, but isn’t presented with the option to have her breasts reconstructed at the same time, she may have to endure another painful surgical experience, Healthline reports.

“Immediate reconstruction offers the benefit of eliminating at least one surgery. It may allow you to get back to life as usual more quickly,” the website maintains. “There’s also the psychological benefit of waking up from your mastectomy with your new breast or breasts more intact than without reconstruction.”

Many women do not know that reconstruction surgery can take place at the same time as a lumpectomy or mastectomy.

Under the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (WHCRA), mastectomy benefits from both group and individual insurance plans must cover:

Reconstruction of the breast that was removed by mastectomy
Surgery and reconstruction of the other breast to make the breasts look symmetrical or balanced after mastectomy
Any external breast prostheses (breast forms that fit into your bra) that are needed before or during the reconstruction
Any physical complications at all stages of mastectomy, including lymphedema (fluid build-up in the arm and chest on the side of the surgery)

With all of the distress associated with a diagnosis, a woman deserves to know every option that’s available to her.

According to the American Cancer Society, the WHCRA does not allow insurance plans and insurance issuers to penalize doctors or lead them to provide care in a way that does not support the WHCRA. Nor does it allow insurance plans to reward doctors who do not encourage their patients to look into breast reconstruction.

Help us make sure that women who undergo breast cancer surgery are aware of these options!

Click below and help us ask for a law that would require doctors to inform breast cancer patients of all of their options before they undergo surgery.