Dr. Gill on reducing IPP teaching visits

In this video, Bradley Gill, MD, highlights key findings from the study, “Optimizing Care - Economic Impact of Reduced Teaching Visits After IPP Implantation,” which he presented at the 24th Annual Fall Scientific Meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America in San Diego, California. Gill is an associate professor of urology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Video Transcript:

Using the model of 100 implants per year, and assuming that we can reduce teaching visits by 1 during that 90-day global period, that translates into an estimated additional 3000 minutes of outpatient time that you have available to assist other patients. In addition to looking at outpatient visits and new assessments for patients coming in, considering other things that are addressed in men's health practices, for instance, BPH. If you would utilize that time to perform cystoscopies on your patients, that can translate into an additional 75 cystoscopies per year, which translates roughly into about $18,000, actually a little over that, of annual reimbursement for care. So again, another avenue to help patients get in to receive care, and then also to help make sure that practices remain viable and on a sure footing.

Another common men's health procedure, vasectomies. Again, going back to that practice doing 100 implants a year, if we can shave off 1 teaching visit for each one of those patients in that 90-day global period, then that translates roughly into an additional 37 vasectomies, assuming a certain amount of time for that procedure and office space. That results in about $12,500 of additional reimbursement annually. So, being able to optimize practice and shorten the number or duration, even of teaching visits, is something that will be very helpful, not only for us in terms of improving access to care and being able to get more patients in to have their problems addressed, but also to practices themselves in terms of being able to provide billable care that's able to bring in reimbursement and payment for the services being rendered.

Another question that we asked in this was if we're able to decrease those teaching visits, how would that translate into additional patients who may come in and for instance, pursue a prosthesis or surgical treatment. What we found there is, again a very conservative estimate, we could serve an additional 15 patients per year, if we're able to shave off 1 teaching visit for every implant that's done. Looking at the amount of care there that's done–that's a consultation and maybe another subsequent visit or 2 are done for counseling or further assessment–that comes out to be about $8,300 a year of reimbursement to the practice for those services that are rendered. That doesn't include the downstream revenue that would come back for the surgical procedure, [such as] time in the operating room itself.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.