National Trends in Gastrointestinal Access Procedures: An Analysis of Medicare Services Provided by Radiologists and Other Specialists

Evolving Roles of Radiologists, Nephrologists, and Surgeons in Endovascular Hemodialysis Access Maintenance Procedures

“…To that end, several independent groups have used Medicare patterns as a surrogate of national trends of services performed, at least in part, by interventional radiologists [6][7][8][9]17]. Using similar methodologies, these groups have focused on Medicare beneficiaries through national fee-for-service claims databases.…”

National Fluid Shifts: Fifteen-Year Trends in Paracentesis and Thoracentesis Procedures

“…Methodology similar to that used to evaluate trends in other minimally invasive procedures was used [14][15][16][17][18][19]. Annual Medicare Physician Supplier Procedure Summary (PSPS) Master Files from 1993 through 2008 were acquired from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and used as the basis for our analysis.…”

“…Although Medicare trends have been widely used to evaluate interspecialty procedural shifts for a number of minimally invasive procedures [14][15][16][17][18][19], Medicare insures only approximately 15% of the US population [39], and those trends have not been validated in the non-Medicare population. Unfortunately, no universal national claims database exists to permit such an analysis.…”

Gastrostomies Preserve But Do Not Increase Quality of Life for Patients and Caregivers

“…1 17,000 gastrostomies are estimated to be inserted annually in the United Kingdom, compared to 125,000 procedures in the United States of America. [2][3][4][5] These estimate values and paucity of contemporary data internationally, highlight the uncertainty that currently exists in the medical literature regarding the frequency of enteral access placements. 4 Although these procedures are widely performed, controversies exist regarding the merits of this intervention.…”