St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Pink Ribbon Mammogram Program designed to address health-care disparities.

11 Background: Despite ongoing national efforts to promote state-mandated health care, such as the Affordable Health Care Act, many regions still struggle with high rates of uninsured and under-insured residents. Over 500,000 people have enrolled in the Healthy Michigan Plan, but premium payments are often prohibitively higher than the penalties for failing to obtain insurance. In Oakland County, 15% of adults remain uninsured and only 66.4% receive access to mammography screening. Developed in 2009, the St Joseph Mercy Oakland Pink Ribbon Mammogram Program takes a unique approach to addressing this issue, providing free breast cancer screening for women in Oakland County. Methods: Since its inception six years ago, the SJMO Pink Ribbon Program has served 806 Oakland County uninsured and under-insured women. This was made possible through the coordination of funding from the Pink Ribbon Trailblazers, a local grass-roots organization led by a breast cancer survivor, and St Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital. Our program is unique, as women not only receive a free screening mammogram, but also a personalized breast cancer risk assessment and a clinical breast exam by a breast surgeon. The program also covers diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound if necessary. Women who need biopsy meet with the oncology financial navigator. Most women are enrolled in either the State of Michigan Title XV program/BCCCP, or Mercy Support, a charitable financial assistance program through the hospital. Women diagnosed with breast cancer either continue in Mercy Support or are enrolled in Medicaid. Results: We have found that despite the recent Affordable Health Care Act, demand for our program continues to increase annually. There continues to be a need for local communities to address health care disparities amongst lower income populations in Oakland County and throughout the nation. Conclusions: The purpose of this article is to describe the way that a local charitable organization, physician, and the hospital can come together to fund and provide continuity of care from screening, diagnosis, to treatment for low income women.