ArticleCancer2025
Commercial prices and their influence on urology practices: Prostate cancer care among men with Medicare.
Article in Cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Private equity acquisitions and cancer care: nothing to see here? Not so fast.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026Article
- A Payment Incentive to Improve Confirmatory Testing in Men With Prostate Cancer.JAMA network open · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFor men with prostate cancer, there is substantial variation in the use of conservative management, such as active surveillance. Commercial prices, which vary across urology practices, may afford incentives that foster physician behaviors associated with utilization. Such behaviors may "spillover" to the Medicare population and affect quality. This study evaluated the effects of practice-level commercial prices on health care utilization and quality in men with prostate cancer insured by traditional Medicare.
methodsFrom a 20% Medicare sample, the authors identified men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer between 2014-2019 (n = 44,653). Using commercial payments from the MarketScan database, they developed a practice-level commercial price index (ratio of commercial prices to Medicare prices). They examined the association of the price index with price standardized spending, overtreatment (treatment among those with >50% noncancer mortality within 10 years), and underuse of diagnostic testing in active surveillance (at least one prostate-specific antigen test and one confirmatory test-MRI, prostate biopsy, genomic test-within 12 months of diagnosis).
resultsPractice-level commercial price indices varied from 1.34 (134% of Medicare prices), for practices in the bottom decile, to 3.00, for practices in the top decile. Increasing price index was associated with lower odds of overtreatment (odds ratio, 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.76-0.97; p = .01), but not price standardized spending or underuse of diagnostic testing in active surveillance.
conclusionsCommercial prices vary markedly across urology practices. Among newly diagnosed men with traditional Medicare, those managed by practices with higher commercial price indices had lower odds of overtreatment, suggesting improved prostate cancer care quality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.