Health Law & Policy

An effort by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to prevent physicians from administering anatomic pathology diagnostic testing services performed in so-called "pod labs" has been temporarily stalled by a U.S. District Court judge in a case brought by Uropath, LLC and several urology groups.

Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, distinguished professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and visiting professor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, has told Congress and the American people that many doctors are “on the take” from the big pharmaceutical companies, which pay them in one way or another to prescribe their drugs to patients.

Two important Medicare policy changes have been implemented by the federal government, tightening hospital payment rules to discourage preventable in-hospital errors, injuries, and infections and implementing the third phase of the Stark self-referral law.

A group of medical specialty organizations, including AUA, is pushing new legislation that would delay permanent implementation of Medicare's "pay for performance" quality reporting program to allow for a more orderly transition to the new system of Medicare reimbursement.

For the third year in a row, legislation has been introduced in Congress to help resolve a troubling issue for many physicians who treat cancer patients: how to be fairly reimbursed for the cost of injectable drugs.

The average urologists is named as a defendent in a medical malpractice suit at least twice in his career. What can we do to reduce our risk for these lawsuits?