In July 2017, the Large Urology Group Practice Association (LUGPA) submitted a proposal to PTAC. The “LUGPA APM for Initial Therapy of Newly Diagnosed Patients with Organ-Confined Prostate Cancer” proposed incentivizing urologists to choose “active surveillance” as a method for treating certain cancer patients when “clinically appropriate.”
In December 2017, PTAC voted not to recommend the LUGPA APM
In other words, doctors shouldn’t be paid for doing what they should, the committee seemed to argue. LUGPA President Deepak Kapoor, MD, said he was frustrated that even though PTAC agreed that the LUGPAmodel met many of the high-priority criteria, they remained “philosophically” opposed to the model. Click here to read about the frustrations that some physician group practices are expressing.