Balancing Quality of Care and Costs in Urology Practices

Balancing costs while preserving access to high quality care is an important topic in cancer care. The recent explosion of new therapies for patients with urologic cancer has brought this issue to the forefront of conversation, particularly in advanced prostate cancer.

E. David Crawford, MD, and Mark S. Austenfeld, MD, believe this issue will continue to be discussed, as better medications and devices become available and costs continue to rise. Additionally, Crawford believes it may be best to combine these therapies, which would further increase the cost per treatment course. With multiple new drug approvals in the last few years extra costs are inevitable, Neal D. Shore, MD, notes. These extra costs are primarily tied to the high price of research and development for new drugs.

Ultimately, the panel agrees that physicians should remain conscious of costs while offering the best care to patients.