Evidence addressing a recent congressional briefing
A recent congressional briefing on at-home cervical cancer screening raised three concerns:
- The number of women who have never been screened is rising fast.
- At-home screening kits don't help unless HPV-positive patients get follow-up care.
- Patient navigation is paid for only after someone is diagnosed with invasive cancer.
Results from Teal Health
Teal Health's at-home screening service has been available for more than a year and is the first FDA-authorized at-home HPV self-collection test with integrated telehealth. New peer-reviewed data (Swenson et al., Telehealth and Medicine Today, 2026) show it already addresses each of these concerns.
In its first 10 months, Teal delivered screening results to 2,881 women in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
- A staggering fifty-nine percent (59%) were under-screened, including more than 12% who had never been screened.
- Users came from racially and economically diverse communities. On average, they lived in ZIP codes where more than a third of residents were people of color, 43% lived in moderate- or high-poverty ZIP codes, and
- More than 16% lived in rural areas
Many chose at-home screening because of barriers that keep women out of clinics, such as distrust of in-person care, pain with speculum exams, work and childcare obligations, or past trauma.
- Seventy-seven percent (77%) of patients returned their samples for testing, a value much higher than that for other at-home screening options like colorectal cancer screening. Other researched mailed HPV at home kit options compare at 25–47% return rates.
- Satisfaction was 99%.
Teal's model was built around the follow-up gap the panel described. Every patient has a telehealth visit with a women's health clinician before the kit ships, gets education throughout the process, and receives results digitally with clinical support.
Patient navigation
Patient navigation is included for HPV-positive patients from the start
- Of the 203 HPV-positive patients, 90% opted for a follow-up telehealth consultation, demonstrating the strong desire for education and understanding of HPV-positive results and next steps
- As a result of this additional navigation, 88% completed or scheduled guideline-directed follow-up care within 6 months.
Published reports generally show follow-up rates at or below 50%, 18-24 months after HPV-positive results. In this underscreened population, HPV self-collection identified two invasive cervical cancers and one adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS). That is a cancer detection rate nearly 9x times the U.S. annual cervical cancer incidence of 7.7 per 100,000 (NCI SEER).
It takes comprehensive wraparound care, including clinical eligibility review, education, results delivery and navigation through follow-up, to turn a positive result into a diagnosis and treatment. Teal's model already provides that full continuum of care, shows that it reaches underscreened and addresses the follow up care needed to detect and prevent cancer. It is the standard policymakers should expect from at-home screening.
Sources
- Swenson L, et al. At-Home Integrated HPV Self-Collection With Telehealth. Telehealth and Medicine Today. 2026. doi:10.30953/thmt.v11.729
- Medical Economics: Congressional briefing examines barriers to at-home cervical cancer screening
- NCI SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Cervical Cancer (incidence 2019–2023)