By: Eva Keller
Most large employers in South Florida already pay for mammograms. Insurance coverage for screening is broad, and the guidelines are familiar. Yet a large share of eligible women still skip the exam. Dr. Ryan Polselli, a fellowship-trained breast radiologist and founder of MammoLink, argues that the gap is not about awareness at all. It is a logistics problem, and the employer is the party best placed to solve it.
His reasoning starts with how people make decisions. A patient facing heart surgery will research the surgeon and travel wherever necessary because fear drives the choice. Screening works differently.
There is no symptom and no immediate harm, so the decision depends on deliberate planning, and planning loses to whatever is urgent that day. Every added step, from a referral to a separate appointment to time away from work, becomes another reason to postpone.
Polselli built MammoLink around that behavior. The Tampa company parks 3D mammography units at workplaces, school districts, and government sites, and in about three years a team of 90 has completed more than 55,000 screenings across five units.
Its partners include Walmart, Amazon, Costco, and Miami-based Royal Caribbean. One early lesson surprised him. Advertising to the general public adds perhaps 20 percent more visits, but most of the volume comes from the partner organization scheduling its own people.
The bigger payoff is repetition. “The most important mammogram is not the technically perfect one that’s done today. It’s the one the patient comes back for next year,” Polselli says. When a unit returns to the same workplace every year, he has seen return rates close to 100 percent. In typical community settings, maybe half of women come back the following year. The habit attaches to the place.
That is why he calls the workplace “one of the biggest underappreciated front doors to healthcare.” For employers, the math is direct. Screening at work costs less paid time off, supports retention, and reduces the risk of a late-stage diagnosis. Self-funded employers, including some school districts, feel this most because they carry the claims themselves. Polselli describes an undetected cancer as a ticking time bomb that can cost a million dollars in late-stage care.
Follow-up is the second leak in the system. Women with dense breast tissue often need a supplemental ultrasound, but the usual route is a letter in the mail and a return trip, which Polselli says averages about four weeks.
He cites figures showing only around 3 percent of patients get that ultrasound, even though adding it for dense tissue may find about two more cancers per thousand women, he says. MammoLink’s RAIN system scores breast density at the technologist’s console right after the mammogram, so the patient can be routed to the next step the same day instead of taking another afternoon off work.
None of this works on goodwill alone. “If it doesn’t work economically in a capitalistic society that we have, it’s just not going to happen,” he says. So the company collects outcomes data, satisfaction scores, and answers to a simple question: would you have been screened if the unit had not been there today? Partners can query that data to estimate the savings of expanding to more locations. The tradeoffs are real. Mobile units carry higher capital and operating costs than a fixed clinic, staffing is hard in some regions, and fuel and mileage shape every route.
For benefits leaders in Miami and across Florida, the useful question is not whether mammograms are covered. It is what share of eligible employees were screened last year, and how many will be screened again in the same place next year. If the answer depends on each woman leaving work on her own time, expect roughly half to fall off the calendar. Bringing the exam to the job site is one of the few levers an employer fully controls.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Breast cancer screening recommendations and the need for supplemental imaging vary depending on individual risk factors and medical history. Readers should consult a qualified healthcare professional to determine the most appropriate screening options for their individual needs.
