Expert on increasing access to overactive bladder medications

In this video, Michelle E. Van Kuiken, MD, discusses potential next steps based on the study, “Factors influencing medication selection for management of overactive bladder: Trends and insights from AUA Quality Registry,” for which she served as the lead author. Van Kuiken is an assistant professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and an associate program director of UCSF Urology Graduate Medical Education.

Video Transcript:

I think this study is a stepping stone to look at other areas that impact clinical practice for those of us that see and treat patients for overactive bladder. Again, these are all things that we know and experience in practice, that there are factors outside of the patient's clinical condition that impact the choice of medication we give. One of those huge factors is patient's insurance. Even for me as a clinician, I may want to prescribe a certain medication but unfortunately, the insurance company may not cover it, the patient may not be able to afford it, and it really is a big problem. So, I think [we can use] this data to continue to support our argument in favor of impacting change in the realm of access to medications for certain types of patients. There's an amassing body of literature that's showing that anticholinergics, particularly oxybutynin, are heavily implicated in both short- and long-term risk of cognitive decline and dementia. [We can use] the study to help further those arguments that we should be able to make our clinical decisions based on the patient's presentation, a risk-benefit discussion between patient and physician, and not based on what insurance companies will pay for. I think having studies like this is important to further that discussion.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.