Medicare officials said they have temporarily abandoned a proposed measure that would have penalized physicians for ordering "non-recommended" prostate-specific antigen tests to screen for prostate cancer, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Here are five things to know:
1. The proposal, part of the federal effort to define and reward quality in healthcare services, sparked confusion and criticism among urologists and others who said the question of whether men should be screened for prostate cancer remained too controversial to link to a penalty in Medicare reimbursement.
2. The proposed measure was based on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's 2012 recommendation against PSA screening for men of any age on the grounds that the benefits don't outweigh the harms.
3. The proposed measure caused confusion because it would have penalized physicians for ordering only "non-recommended" PSA screenings and listed some categories of patients that would be excluded, including those with a history of prostate cancer, an enlarged prostate or prior elevated PSA levels.
4. According to CMS, of the 358 comments received, 58 percent opposed limits on PSA screening in general and 40 percent disagreed with the task force's guidelines, while 34 percent included personal stories about patient experiences with prostate cancer or screening.
5. Both the rate of PSA testing and diagnoses of early-stage prostate cancer have declined significantly in the United States in recent years, according to studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last fall.