Welcome to Hally Healthcast, the wellness podcast from Hally® health – your partner in helping you live your healthiest life. Every episode on our podcast addresses a new topic important to your health and well-being, bringing in doctors, specialists and other health experts who offer advice and answer your most pressing questions. Today’s episode is all about the importance of colon cancer screening. March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so it’s the perfect time to learn more about this important topic. Here with us is Dr. Michael Smith. He’s senior vice president and chief medical officer at Health Alliance Medical Plans in Champaign. Welcome, Dr. Smith, and thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your knowledge.
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Colon Cancer Screening
Michael Smith, MD
Michael Smith, MD is the Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer at Health Alliance Medical Plans.
Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to Hally HealthCast, the wellness podcast from Hally Health, your partner in helping you live your healthiest life. Every episode on our podcast addresses a new topic important to your health and wellbeing, bringing in doctors, specialists, and other health experts who offer advice and answer your most pressing questions.
Today's episode is all about the importance of colon cancer screening. March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so it's the perfect time to learn more about this important topic. Here with us is Dr. Michael Smith. He's the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Health Alliance Medical Plans in Champaign.
Welcome, Dr. Smith, and thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your knowledge. Let's begin by talking about the screening process itself. It's gotten somewhat easier, or at least more convenient, for the average patient with the growing popularity of home testing, hasn't it? Can you tell us a little bit about the options available to people with home testing for colon cancer today?
Michael Smith, MD: Greetings, Caitlin. It's a pleasure to speak with you today. Colon cancer is a major concern in the United States, causing the death of more than 52,000 individuals every year. It is the second leading cause of cancer death, with only lung cancers more common. So this is a medical concern that all of us should be aware of.
There are a couple common home tests to screen for risk for colon cancer. Those are the FIT test, an abbreviation for Fecal Immunochemical Test, and the FIT DNA test. The gold standard test for colon cancer is a colonoscopy procedure done in a lab by a medical specialist. And I should point out early, that home screening tests are not as sensitive or specific as colonoscopy.
Colonoscopy identifies 99 percent of colon cancer, whereas the home tests are more in the 80 to 90 percent range. But the obvious advantage of the home testing is convenience, as well as the avoidance of an endoscopy medical procedure. For this reason, many physicians advocate home testing as a front line screening approach for low risk patients that is then followed up by colonoscopy if the screening test is abnormal.
Host: Thank you, Dr. Smith. You've made this process a lot less intimidating by explaining it so thoroughly. And yet, I suspect there are still skeptics in our audience who might be wondering what the big deal is about home testing and questioning its advantages. What do you have to say to the doubters out there?
Michael Smith, MD: As with many cancers, early detection is critical to successful treatment and survival. If colon cancer is identified at the earliest point, called stage 1, the 5-year overall survival can be higher than 90%. On the other hand, if it's only identified after it has widely spread, known as stage 4, the 5-year survival rate drops dramatically to approximately 10%.
The specialty of oncology has made dramatic leaps in their ability to effectively treat cancers throughout my 30 year medical career, but the best technology available in 2025 still remains most effective when we find the problem early.
Host: Thank you, Dr. Smith, for breaking down the pros and cons of home screening so succinctly. You've definitely made a convincing case for it. Okay, so we go ahead with the home test. But what happens next? After we've completed our test and sent it back, what do we do then?
Michael Smith, MD: Each of the home tests asks the member to obtain a stool specimen. The test manufacturers include everything needed to properly collect this. One need no special medical training to obtain the specimen. There is no physical risk of the testing, nothing invasive at all. The member then brings the collected sample kit to the laboratory requested by their medical provider. This might be a local lab or or it may be a national corporation such as ColoGuard that does their analysis with samples sent through the U. S. mail.
Test results usually take a few days to return and then are shared with the member, their medical provider, and to the health plan. Here at Health Alliance, we proactively sponsor home testing for members when we identify gaps in screening care, that is, members who are eligible for testing, those age 45 to 75 and lacking high risk symptoms or history.
We then mail home testing kits to those members. In this manner, the health plan actively partners with our clinical care providers to try to ensure we're offering screening for as many of our members as possible. The health plan will always send these results to both the member and their primary care provider.
If they don't have a doctor, we'll work to get the member connected with the provider in our network.
Host: Excellent answer, Dr. Smith. That was most informative. So now we know how the home test for colon cancer works, what's involved in it, what options are available, even how safe and reliable it is. But why do we devote a month to awareness of it? Why is it so important to undergo screening for colon cancer, no matter how it's done?
Michael Smith, MD: As we discussed earlier, colon cancer can have very high or very low rates of survival, largely dependent on when it's first medically identified. Screening tests are the key to early diagnosis because early on, patients are generally asymptomatic. They feel completely fine. But the early cancer they're carrying is likely to lead eventually to their death if not identified and treated.
Waiting until obvious symptoms occur, such as significant bleeding or a blockage of the intestine is often associated with poor prognosis.
Host: Wow. Well, that definitely puts this month's topic into perspective. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Clearly, screening for colon cancer can be a literal lifesaver. All right, my last question for you today. You've certainly succeeded in increasing our awareness of colon cancer screening, but obviously that awareness also carries with it an important call to action. What message would you want every listener out there to take with them from this podcast today?
Michael Smith, MD: It's one of the most endearing traits of Americans that we rally in a crisis. Every American over age 35,
certainly remembers vividly, the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, even though that event occurred more than 23 years ago. We remember where we were when we learned of the attack on America, the aftermath, and we remember the many changes that came in the following years to try to improve public safety.
If you remember only one thing from our discussion today, remember this. Eighteen times more Americans die of colon cancer every year than died in the September 11th attacks. A great number of those deaths are preventable, but only if we all do our part to catch the disease early. As doctors, we know how to treat this disease. We need your help to catch it while medical therapy has the best chance to save your life.
Host: Perfect. You couldn't have made the importance of today's topic any clearer or more personal to each of us. Dr. Smith, you've been an exceptional guest on our podcast. Thank you so much for joining us, and for all that you do every day at Health Alliance for so many people and families.
That concludes today's Hally HealthCast. Tune in next time as we tackle yet another topic important for your health and well being. And remember, Hally Health is your partner in helping you live your healthiest life. Visit Hally.com. That's H-A-L-L-Y.com for resources, information, tips, and much more. Let us help keep you and your family healthy and well. Thanks for listening. We hope you tune in again.