title: Health policy 2016: implications for geriatric urology.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The US healthcare system is undergoing fundamental changes in an effort to improve access to care, curtail healthcare spending, and improve quality of care. These efforts largely focused on Medicare, and therefore, will have a fundamental impact on the care of geriatric patients. This article reviews contemporary health policy issues, with a focus on how these issues may impact the care of geriatric urology patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Affordable Care Act has broadened the scope of Medicare coverage. Future Medicare reimbursement will be increasingly tied to care coordination, quality reporting, and demonstration of appropriate outcomes. Additional research is needed to better define the comparative effectiveness of urologic therapies in geriatric patients. Workforce projections indicate that there is a shortage of urologists in many areas of the country, and that this shortage will worsen over time unless a new funding model is instituted for graduate medical education.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Medicare spending drives many health policy decisions. Therefore, few health policy topics are unique to geriatrics or geriatric urology. However, certain health policy topics (e.g., care coordination and risk-stratification) are particularly germaine to the elderly patients. Urologists with a particular interest in geriatric urology should be familiar with these issues.
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Urology, University of California, San Francisco, California bDepartment of Urology, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Anne M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Suskind
authors.forename: J Quentin
authors.initials: JQ
authors.lastname: Clemens
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005853:Geriatrics; D006291:Health Policy; D006280:Health Workforce; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014572:Urology