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 this "Money Matters" column, Joel M. Blau, CFP, and Ronald J. Paprocki, JD, CFP, CHBC, also discuss donor-advised funds.
Gerald H. Jordan, MD, Thomas Granatir, and Michael L. Ritchey, MD, of the American Board of Urology provide an overview of the origins of certification and changes to the MOC exam that urologists can anticipate in 2017.
Urologists’ dissatisfaction with maintenance of certification is widespread, and they are not shy about sharing their opinion on the controversial program.
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.
“I have difficulty seeing any real upside between the two candidates, from the physician perspective in general, or urology in particular," said one urologist.
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.
In this video, Dr. Nicholas Kavoussi sits down with Dr. Arthur L. Burnett, II, of the Urology Times Editorial Council to discuss his 2016 AUA presentation, "Preoperative urine cultures for prosthetic urological surgery: What is the evidence?"
In this interview, Dr. David Albala sits down to discuss his award-winning poster on live-cell phenotypic biomarkers at the 2016 AUA with Urology Times Editorial Consultant, Dr. J. Brantley Thrasher.
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.
Jamin Brahmbhatt, MD, discusses his favorite tools to efficiently maintain an active online presence.
Facing uncertainty in Medicare and increasing regulatory and insurer burdens, the leaders of organizations representing urologists across the country gathered in mid-August for the 9th Annual AACU State Society Network Advocacy Conference.
Urologist Henry Rosevear, MD discusses his thoughts on PSA screening and the recent increase in patients presenting with metastatic disease.
The authors of a recent research letter reported a 6% drop in incidence rates for early-stage prostate cancer in men 50 years of age and older from 2012 to 2013.
A recent study suggests that a man’s race/ethnicity might influence decisions about undergoing treatment and re-biopsies.
Here are simple, often inexpensive ways in which urologists can reclaim their engagement and passion for practicing medicine.
The American Medical Association's STEPS Forward program offers bite-sized, simple, and affordable solutions to fix office or practice systems of operations.
Although various calculators are available for predicting biopsy results in men with prostate cancer being managed by active surveillance, a novel model developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University is unique for its ability to predict a patient’s “true cancer state”; ie, the Gleason score that would be assigned on whole-gland analysis after radical prostatectomy.
As interest in using multiparametric MRI as a diagnostic tool for prostate cancer increases, urologists should know that a negative mpMRI does not rule out significant prostate cancer, researchers advised at the AUA annual meeting in San Diego.
A slow breathing technique guided by an iOS application was able to reduce the occurrence of vasomotor symptoms in a small study of prostate cancer survivors treated with androgen deprivation therapy.
Clinical outcomes of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with enzalutamide (XTANDI) after chemotherapy correlate with health-related quality of life both at treatment initiation and its change longitudinally, researchers reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.
The Painters also answer a question about billing for home health orders during the global period in this "Coding Q&A" column.
Robert A. Dowling, MD, dug into the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ recently released 2015 data from the "Open Payments" initiative, and summarizes the data on payments made to urologists.
A new meta-analysis links moderate-to-severe lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) to heart disease in men, possibly because unhealthy lifestyles boost the risks of both conditions.
"LUTS is an important health care burden, and health care professionals should be screening for its presence in men at risk," writes Steven A. Kaplan, MD.