There has been a lot of pushback to a proposed plan by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to penalize doctors who order routine prostate-cancer screening tests. It’s part of a federal effort to define and reward quality in health-care services and to advance evidence-based medicine.
The Wall Street Journal reports that some complain that the measure “would discourage doctors from discussing the pros and cons of screening for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) with their patients and allowing them to decide, as several major medical groups recommend.”
“PSA screening is a very controversial topic. The debate is ongoing and people feel very strongly about it, one way or another,” David Penson, M.D., chairman of public policy and practice support for the American Urological Association, told the WSJ. The association urged the CMS not to implement the proposal.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force opposes routine screening for prostate cancer for men of any age because, it says, the benefits don’t outweigh the harms.