Older women continue to get Pap tests they don't need. According to a study of Medicare fee-for-service patients in the January JAMA Internal Medicine, over 1 million women ages 65 years and older received cervical cancer screening in 2019, despite the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation against screening women older than 65 at average risk for cervical cancer with a history of adequate screening. Screening in this group received a "D" grade from the task force, defined as "moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits" (see https://uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/about-uspstf/methods-and-proces). The study found that rates of screening in women older than 65 have dropped dramatically across all ages and racial and ethnic groups, from 18.9% in 1999 to 8.5% in 2019. However, the costs of screening and related cervical procedures in women over 65 reached $83.5 million in 2019. Unnecessary screening and follow-up procedures are not only costly, but pose risks such as pain, bleeding, infection, and psychological distress.