Dr. Amanda North
speaker
75 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Dr. Amanda North’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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But the other two ways to access data is you can apply for data through the AUA website. If you go to the census part of the AUA website, you will see that you can apply for data. They do charge a fee to access the data. Depending on whether you just want raw data or you want statistical services, you work with the data team and they will help you figure out how much that costs.
And the other way is the way that Dr. Nielsen just mentioned, which is to apply for the data research program, which we're in the middle of reviewing the letters of interest from the second round. We had six awards last year, and we're in the process. I finished my preliminary review of all of my letters that I had to read today.
And we will award four census grants and two ACWA-related grants by the end of this year. And so that's another way for people to apply for data. And what you get from that data research program is you get the full support. You not only get the data, but you get the full support of the statistical team at the AUA, as well as a small amount of travel money to disseminate your project.
So to like attend the annual meeting and present your abstract. And the AUA gives you a small amount of money for that also. So we've had six awardees from last year and we're planning to have six more this year. So for anyone who hasn't heard of our data research program, I'm really excited about it because it is a way for anyone.
And we really do try to get, you know, junior level people access to the data through that program.
And both telehealth and the prior auth questions, We work in collaboration with the Legislative Affairs Committee. There is a telehealth subcommittee at the AUA who comes to our census planning meeting every year to advocate for our telehealth questions. But Brad Stein, who does a lot of the advocacy work for the AUA, he's full-time staff at the AUA.
I've been working with Brad for at least 10 years on these types of issues. And the one phone call that I make before we finalize the census questions is to make sure that Brad's team is has the data they need for the work they do in Washington DC on behalf of all practicing urologists. And telehealth and prior auth are two topics that they really advocated for us to put on the census this year.
The prior auth questions came straight from Brad's team, word for word, based on some of their meetings with some of the other medical specialty groups with the kinds of questions they've been asking their members. And so just another plug for people to fill out the census. This data goes to Congress. period, hard stop.
This is the data that the AUA needs to fight for things that are gonna make our practice lives better. Lawyers get paid hundreds of dollars for a 10 minute phone call with a client and they wanna take away any payment for a telephone only telehealth visit that we're doing because our patients don't have access to the technology to do it on video, really? I don't understand that at all.
And so if you don't fill out these questions, we don't have the data that we need to go to Congress. And so with prior auth, the data is appalling. Over half of urologists said that prior auth at least moderately affects clinical outcomes. More than a third said severely. Peer-to-peer consultation is almost never with a urologist. I personally have never spoken to a urologist in a peer-to-peer.
And half of urologists are doing more than 10 prior auths in a typical week. This is a huge waste of everyone's time. It's bad for patient care. It is bad for patient care. It is bad for patient care. And if you spend any time on social media listening to patients deal with prior aughts from their end, it is horrific.
And so, again, this data is super important to our advocacy team because this is what they use to go to CMS. And I've attended meetings with CMS where we talked about prior auth. And I'm talking about five years ago before COVID. I was invited to some of those meetings. Prior auth is a huge burden on everyone in the health care system except the insurance companies who want to gatekeep.
And when the insurance companies are making millions of dollars and urologists are taking salary cuts – Something is wrong, right? Our patients should not be paying the price for this. And again, this data comes from all of you filling out the AUA census.
Well, we found, and as a caveat, we have asked the Maslach Burnout Inventory on the census. We ask every five years. So it was asked in 2016 and 2021. This was a quick question, are you experiencing burnout? So that we could then assess some of the factors associated with burnout, which was really the point of the burnout questions on this census.
These questions came to us from the Workforce Workgroup, who's been studying burnout for decades. almost a decade now. And 71% ever experienced burnout with one third saying they are currently experiencing it. And 12% experienced in the past, but are still experiencing it now. 85% of women in urology say that they have some sort of burnout. I mean, it's really bad. But only 17%
are seeking professional help. And one of the things, again, this goes back to our advocacy efforts, is to understand the impact of state licensing requirements. When our states ask us about whether or not we've had any mental health care, does that prevent people from getting mental health care? And it does, 43%. So we're working on a paper to try to look at this now.
We're looking at the data now. It's in the beginning stages to look at which states ask these types of questions on their licensing of renewals. And if that specifically has an impact on whether or not people said that they were afraid for their state licenses, because every state is different and not all states ask those types of questions.
But I do think it's a big state advocacy issue to be able to go to the state legislatures. And again, the AUA has a state advocacy team. And so we want to be able to give them this data to help fight for us to be able to get mental health care. without it stigmatizing our ability to practice urology. So this data is super important on a state level.
You know, these aren't even microaggressions, right? But we know that microaggressions have impact on people in their day to day lives. And I tell the story. I've been in practice 17 years and I still get asked questions. If I'm the nurse in the recovery room at the children's hospital on a pretty regular basis, which is kind of discouraging, given that I'm the chief of pediatric urology.
Now, you would think that that would come with some recognition, but no. But this kind of patient driven harassment is really upsetting. And I think there's a theory in our culture, I think, that people's behavior has gotten worse since COVID. We don't have data anymore. From earlier, these questions were submitted by Dr. Kathy Nam at Michigan as part of a grant that she's doing.
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