Meir Rinde

In March, the President’s Cancer Panel issued a report acknowledging the financial toxicity associated with cancer care across the spectrum of treatments and suggesting potential remedies.

Amid an explosion of innovation and discovery in the oncology field, researchers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit enough patients for clinical trials.

The use of next-generation sequencing to diagnose cancers and guide therapy decisions is expanding as more therapies are linked to genomic abnormalities.

Doctors from Intermountain Healthcare decided to see if they could improve outcomes of patients placed on expensive machines.

As CMS moves ahead with payment reforms designed to reduce the total cost of hospital care, the results from a new study show that cancer treatment remains much less expensive at community oncology clinics than at hospitals and that the spending gap between the 2 types of sites may be growing wider.

The hood for handling biologics isn't vented to the outdoors, and there’s no negative-pressure room to safely contain and exhaust potentially tainted air.

As the Oncology Care Model practices work to reduce Medicare’s overall spending on those patients and to earn shared savings payments, the data are providing them with an unprecedented full picture of the extent and cost of care.

Five years ago, Capital BlueCross asked community oncology practices in its network what kind of reimbursement model they would like to try as they worked to stay financially viable and independent.

Joliet Oncology-Hematology decided to create new governance and compensation structures and eventually elected a new president.

Practices in CMS’ Oncology Care Model are individually receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in new annual revenue, but physicians and administrators are not exactly celebrating the influx of cash.

A divide has developed between pathways that primarily serve physicians and those that cater to payers that are trying to rein in costs.

Major pharmacy companies are paying attention to the movement toward value-based care in oncology, but recent comments from representatives of 2 top firms suggest this sector is wary of risking capital to lower costs and improve patient outcomes.

The number of accountable care organizations across the country has grown rapidly in the last 5 years, creating opportunities and challenges for oncology practices as they seek to benefit from the organizations’ referral networks, shared-savings programs, and care-improvement efforts.

As recently as the late 1990s, a practice could charge enough for chemotherapy drugs that it could easily afford to treat patients who had Medicare coverage and no additional insurance. Today, that is often no longer the case.

Oral oncolytics can bring increased revenue to a practice but are inherently difficult to manage because of their high cost.

Male breast cancer is a rare and poorly understood disease, but recent molecular studies have revealed fundamental differences from female breast cancer that could help guide treatment strategies toward a more tailored approach.

The Republican push to repeal the Affordable Care Act has sent anxiety levels soaring among oncologists and their patients, due largely to the great uncertainty about how exactly Congress will proceed.

Several organizations are developing alternative payment models they hope CMS will adopt as ways to encourage oncologists to deliver care at a lower cost while improving its quality. If approved, these proposals could become customized alternatives to the agency’s Oncology Care Model.

Florida is a leader in the consolidation trend, topping the nation in the number of practices that have closed, merged, or been acquired in recent years.

When a leading pharmacy benefit manager, CVS Caremark, announced in August that it would stop covering prescriptions at physician dispensaries for patients with Medicare Part D drug coverage, it fell to practice staffers like Tommy Harwood to deal with the resulting consternation.

One by one, major payers have announced they will withdraw from many Affordable Care Act marketplaces at the end of this year, leaving residents of hundreds of counties with just one or two payers selling policies on the government-run exchanges.

Preauthorizations for chemotherapy drugs and payers’ differing administrative requirements are two of the main contributors to greater hiring needs. Oncologists and practice managers also cite frequent coverage denials, lengthy appeal processes, payerspecific clinical pathways, financial counseling for underinsured patients, data-tracking initiatives, and night and weekend nurse triage services.

Pressures on independent oncology practices have been mounting for years, as payer data-reporting requirements become more onerous and revenue from drug reimbursements decline.

Under direct contracting, a provider signs an agreement with a business or membership organization outlining the care to be provided and the payment scheme, cutting out the insurer completely.

Social media has become an outlet for expressing frustration with the struggle to get insurance approvals for oncology tests and treatments.

A profusion of so-called “liquid biopsy” tests that extract circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, or exosomes from blood and urine are under investigation at research institutions and startup firms, and in some cases are already being used to supplement or replace traditional biopsies.

The accumulation of evidence supporting a regimen of anthracycline and taxanes for breast cancer has led some oncologists to argue for the establishment of a standard treatment plan that deemphasizes or eliminates alternative options.

The medical home model created by John Sprandio, MD, which typically offers wraparound care to improve patient outcomes, is also slowly expanding into oncology practices nationally.

Some oncologists say they are overwhelmed by the diversity of pathways and payers are too often using them to micromanage decision making.

As medical director of radiation oncology at Lowell General Hospital in Massachusetts, Matthew Katz, MD, is well attuned to trends in breast cancer treatment.