Congressman Greg Murphy, MD, Supports Medicare Diagnostic Radiopharmaceutical Payment Equity Act

The Society for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging recently interviewed Congressman Greg Murphy, MD, a urologist who spent much of his career in clinical practice until his election in 2019. Congressman Murphy is supporting HR 3772, the Medicare Diagnostic Radiopharmaceutical Payment Equity Act.

As a physician, Congressman Murphy has been able to provide perspective that most members of Congress just aren’t able to. “I have 30 years of bedside experience, I have run a small business practice, I served as a chief of staff of a major hospital, and I still practice,” Dr. Murphy says. But maybe the most helpful insight the congressman can provide is that he understands the provider.

That provider perspective has now also supported the nuclear medicine community. When asked why he had signed onto HR 3772, Dr. Murphy says, “Staging prostate cancer has been at best a guess over the years. As good as MRI is, these scans produce a lot of false positives and a lot of false negatives. Nuclear medicine creates a great picture.” He later went on to speak to the importance of an accurate diagnosis as it relates to the treatment: “With all the new personalized treatments available, patients no longer have to go through ‘carpet bomb’ treatment. We are able to develop personalized treatment plans that are specifically tailored for the patient.”