At End of Life, Chemotherapy Use Dropped After Implementation of Medicare Reform Act
May 13th 2014The reductions in reimbursement for chemotherapy drugs after passage of the Medical Modernization Act (MMA) had a distinct effect on the administration of cancer drugs for patients in the last 14 days of life.
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ASCO Proposes Flexible Bundle Payment Model
May 5th 2014Payment reform in oncology is not new, but since most of the models proposed in the past have required wholesale changes in practice, care delivery, or administrative structure, oncology practices have been reluctant to embrace significant change.
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Review Study Suggests an Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment in Thyroid Cancer
April 30th 2014A review study of trends in patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer from 1975 to 2009 suggest the cancer has been overdiagnosed, and therefore overtreated, according to Louise Davies, MD, MS, and H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH.
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Some Practices Forced to Aggressively Collect Payments From Patients
April 25th 2014With the recent economic downturn and a proliferation of patients enrolled in high deductible health plans, oncology practices are placed in the unenviable position of having to collect payments from patients.
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Teaching Billing and Coding Techniques Benefit Second-Year Students
April 21st 2014In addition to the clinical skills lectures included in medical school curriculum, second-year medical students at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ, are also receiving a course in understanding the basics of billing and coding
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As CMS Contemplates ICD-10 Delay, Take Advantage of the Slow Rollout
April 15th 2014Even as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) examines the implications of the ICD-10 delay there are some steps oncology and hematology practice managers can take now before the rollout gets into full swing.
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Medicare Data Reveals Top Billing Docs
April 9th 2014Buckling to calls for transparency and a Wall Street Journal court case requiring the agency to provide public access to physician billing records, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a database containing transactions worth $77 billion by 880,000 physicians and physician practices certified to collect from Medicare
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Aduro BioTech Immunotherapy Duo Shows Promise in Pancreatic Cancer
April 3rd 2014The use of immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer has had limited exposure, but Aduro BioTech, Inc, has had phase II success with an approach in which two vaccines are administered. The vaccines, GVAX Pancreas and CRS-207, are administered to patients sequentially.
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Temporary SGR Patch Expected to Clear Senate Vote
March 31st 2014The Senate is expected to consider and vote on a bill passed by the House on March 27 that includes language to patch the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for 12 months and delay ICD-10 implementation until at least October 1, 2015
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Some Docs Hesitant to Embrace Genomic Tests That Identify Tumor Changes
March 25th 2014A physician's confidence level in his genomic knowledge plays a significant role in attitudes towards genomic tests, especially in tests that look for changes in DNA that are taken from patients' tumor samples
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