News

Newsday released their annual Castle Connolly LI Top Doctors’ magazine issue which lists the 1,000+ Long Island top physicians.

See Newsday magazine’s July 2023 issue, and the AUCNY and ARC doctors on page 9 of the special advertising feature.

If you visited an Advanced Radiation Centers of New York (ARC) facility since the onset of the pandemic, you have experienced the special care taken to keep patients and staff safe. ARC’s TV spot acknowledged the changes and assured patients that all precautionary safety measures are in place in the updated 2021 TV spot. View the spot by clicking on this link.

Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield has agreed to reverse a decision made last month to no longer cover services oncological patients receive from facilities run by Integrated Medical Professionals of Farmingdale. Its 52 locations serviced 1300 Long Islanders, including East Enders who already had to drive up the island to find a facility to receive treatment.

In an interview, Dr. Kapoor said his company didn’t agree to any conditions but rather made Empire understand his company is the most cost-effective road for the HMO to take. “We didn’t take a hit. We are the value provider of services. We have better outcomes at a lower cost,” he said.

To learn more, read the story here.

Survey Respondents Influenced by Claims

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising about the radiotherapy (RT) known as CyberKnife (CK), which is currently omnipresent in the New York City transit system, creates “inaccurate impressions” about the treatment’s “comparative effectiveness and safety” in prostate cancer, according to new research.

That conclusion was made by investigators from Columbia University Medical Center after they created an online survey involving 400 men that used language lifted directly from an advertisement. The investigators compared the participants’ responses to the CyberKnife advertisement to responses to information about other prostate cancer treatments.

The results may surprise you. Read about the findings here.

Last month, the insurer said it was removing Integrated Medical Professionals of Farmingdale, a urology and radiation oncology practice, and Port Jefferson Station-based New York Cancer & Blood Specialists, from its Medicare Advantage HMO and Dual Special Needs Plan networks.

Dr. Deepak Kapoor, Integrated Medical’s chairman and CEO, said “we met with senior staff [at Empire] and it wasn’t at all a difficult conversation. We offer high-quality, lower-cost, value-based care. We were hoping the adults would talk to each other, and that’s what happened. For more information about the BC/BS decision reversal, read the article here.

CMS is letting radiation oncologists bill some E/Ms with superficial radiation therapy (SRT) that had previously been bundled. But those providers should look out: this may be a preliminary step before CMS puts in new regulations that may shake up their reimbursement. (more…)

Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield said about 7,000 patients of a Farmingdale-based urology and radiation oncology practice have been notified their doctors are being taken out of the network. Dr. Deepak Kapoor says “We have decades of doctor-patient relationships impacted,” and continued “Our hope is we can talk to the insurer and work it out like adults.” Read about how this BC/BS decision will impact patients.

In a letter to the editor in Urology Times, Deepak A. Kapoor, MD addressed the conclusions of Borza et al on the issue of financial incentives in fee-for-service medicine impacting clinical decision-making (“IMRT ownership appears to influence PCa treatment,” October 2018, p6). To find out why Dr. Kapoor declares the study’s methodology to be unsound, click here.

The Us Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts that makes recommendations to the American public about preventive services updated their previous prostates cancer screening guidelines published in 2012. In 2012, they recommended against routine screening due to the risks involved in additional testing and treatment. To read more about their new position, click here.

John Rescigno, MD, from Manhattan, recently joined Advanced Radiation Centers of New York (ARC). Dr. Rescigno is providing patient care at the Advanced Radiation Centers [ARC] West Nyack office. Learn about him by clicking here.