I am amazed that Jean Mitchell s article (Apr 2012) was accepted for publication in your journal. First, urologist-owned laboratories were new in 2005-07. That was the era of urology "pod labs," which were discredited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mitchell should have made that clear. Second, although billing "Medicare for 4.3 more specimens per prostate biopsy than the adjusted mean of 6 specimens per biopsy" may be statistically correct, the standard of care, as defined by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), was shifting from six tissue cores to eleven, with typical lagging adoption rates for the new standards.
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