According to the 2012 Screening Guidelines, annual screening is excessive.  In response, women may ask, “Is this just a money saving reason?  I am little sceptical.  I’ve always had a Pap every year.”  We need to emphasize that the change in guidelines is meant to:

• Find disease that is significant.
  
  
• Lower harm by not finding excessive amounts of low-grade disease: 
  -  that will be transient or where changes will go away on their own.
  -  where intervening earlier will not make a difference in lives saved.  

The implications: Fewer Pap and HPV tests as we do less frequent screening, and fewer colposcopies, biopsies, and treatments, although there is a percentage of women who will remain Pap-negative/HPV positive who will require colposcopy.