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In his recent blog post “My $4.07 check: A sign of the times,” Henry Rosevear, MD, shared how, after managing a patient with an obstructing stone and billing $1,332.25 for his services, he received a check from the Colorado Indigent Care Program, the patient’s insurer, for $4.07. His blog post prompted a wave of comments, commiseration, and suggestions.

Responding to physicians’ data-driven arguments, including a December 2014 JAMA study showing maintenance of certification (MOC) programs do not improve patient outcomes (JAMA 2014; 312:2348-57), state legislators proposed several new laws in 2016.

"This is the step whereby practices can apply good, evidence-based, pathway-driven medicine to not only provide excellent outcomes for patients, but also be financially successful in the process," writes Henry Rosevear, MD.

New research suggests that urologists can use the Decipher genetic test (GenomeDx Biosciences) to improve predictions of death risk from prostate cancer at10 years after prostatectomy.

A recently approved treatment for urothelial carcinoma provides durable responses when used as first-line treatment in patients who are ineligible for cisplatin-based therapy, according to a recent study.

Recent data show that a low-carbohydrate diet may have significant positive effects in men on hormonal therapy for prostate cancer, including metabolic effects. In this interview, study author Stephen J. Freedland, MD, discusses his group’s findings, ongoing research on diet and lifestyle changes in men with prostate cancer, and how he counsels patients.

It’s time to revisit billing for Medicare Part B drugs. A proposed demonstration project that every urologist should be aware of, a change in the “brown bag” rules since our last publication, and a continued loss of income by many offices are making the purchase and delivery of drugs less palatable for urology offices.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Part D Prescriber Public Use File for 2014 claims. Part of a broader effort to increase transparency about care in general, this dataset also gives very granular information about the prescribing patterns of providers and may be used by policy makers to further scrutinize the cost of prescription drugs in the United States.

A new laboratory study suggests that a widely available nutritional supplement has potential to become a new treatment for the wide majority of kidney stones. Clinical research is still pending, however, and there are important caveats about the findings.

A novel lidocaine-releasing intravesical system (LiRIS, Allergan) demonstrated promising efficacy and safety in a small proof-of-concept study investigating its use as a treatment for women suffering from interstitial cystitis with Hunner’s lesions, reported Kenneth M. Peters, MD, at the AUA annual meeting in San Diego.

In conjunction with Urology Times' recent coverage of maintenance of certification (MOC), we asked several members of the UT Editorial Advisory Board to weigh in with their thoughts on MOC.

After meeting its primary endpoint at 3 months in a prospective, randomized, sham-controlled clinical trial, an intravesical pressure-attenuation balloon (Vesair Bladder Control System, Solace Therapeutics) for treatment of female stress urinary incontinence demonstrated durable efficacy and safety after 12 months of follow-up.

A serious effort to reform the federal physician self-referral law (the Stark law) to reduce the regulatory burden imposed by the statute on medical practices is underway in Congress, and organizations representing urology are encouraging lawmakers to take action. But there is a key component of the law that the AUA and others want to be sure is not changed.

Given the advancement in both pathophysiology and precision-guided approaches for prostate cancer, we assembled a panel of expert urologists to discuss clinically important aspects of ADT that will assist busy clinician decision makers in their optimization of outcomes for their advanced prostate cancer population.