Pressure to expand Medicaid mounts, employer plans decline
November 3rd 2014When provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) related to the expansion of Medicaid to low-income childless adults took effect in January 2014, 25 states and the District of Columbia had approved laws to broaden their programs' eligibility requirements. Since then, under pressure from various interests groups, including state hospital associations, lawmakers in at least three more states-Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania-expanded their health care safety net programs and thereby gained access to federal dollars that would have otherwise been left on the table.
Most websites disagree with PCa screening recommendation
November 3rd 2014A vast majority of top-ranked consumer health websites disagree with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation against screening for prostate cancer, according to a study presented at the American College of Surgeons clinical congress in San Francisco.
IPP: Approaches to prosthesis and AUS placement
November 1st 2014These videos demonstrate the difference in anatomic approach between a single penoscrotal and double perineal/penoscrotal incision technique for simultaneous placement of the inflatable penile prosthesis and artificial urinary sphincter.
Docs’ frustration may hinder access to care
November 1st 2014The 2014 Urology Times “State of the Specialty” survey shows that urologists remain frustrated with over-regulation by government, control of fees, meaningful use (meaningless use?), and a host of other rules that many argue add nothing to the quality of patient care.
Violence against urologists: Data, communication needed
October 28th 2014In this interview, Eugene Y. Rhee, MD, MBA, discusses violent acts committed against urologists, the challenges of collecting and sharing data on potentially dangerous patients, and what some institutions are doing to protect their practices.
Diet and male fertility: What helps, what hurts
October 23rd 2014Papers examining the effects of diet and substance use on male fertility presented at the recently concluded American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in Honolulu may appear to provide conflicting findings, but an expert in andrology says the observational studies don’t tell the complete story.
RARP: ‘Little clear benefit’ compared to open surgery
October 20th 2014Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy is associated with a lower rate of blood transfusion and shorter length of stay compared to open surgery. However, the total first-year reimbursement is higher for RARP and there is no difference between the two procedures in the rate of postoperative complications or use of additional cancer treatment, according to an analysis of contemporary data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Medicare-linked database.
Protective patch linked to erectile function recovery
October 20th 2014The application of dehydrated human amniotic membrane as a therapeutic patch covering the neurovascular bundle may have profound effects on the early recovery of erectile function in men undergoing nerve-sparing, robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, a retrospective study suggests.
Robotic kidney transplant continues to show benefits
October 20th 2014An international team of surgeons from the U.S. and India continues to explore the potential of robotic kidney transplantation with regional hypothermia. The results of an IDEAL (Idea, Development, Exploration, Assessment, Long-term) phase IIb trial of the procedure support the promise seen in preceding trials.