Your AI-Trained Oncology Knowledge Connection!
Watson for Oncology, the IBM "cognitive" computer tool for helping with clinical decisions, is making its debut this month at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida as a regular member of the armamentarium for fighting cancer, as opposed to being a prospective product on trial.
Not only are drug prices soaring with the arrival of many new therapies, but competition for the drug dispensing and drug infusion business is on the rise, Jeff Liticker, PharmD, of UT Southwestern Medical said in a recent talk about oncology drug issues sponsored by the Association of Community Cancer Centers.
A new trend in the way pharmacy benefit managers are collecting fees from pharmacy providers is driving up drug costs, gouging point-of-sale pharmacy operations, and playing havoc with spending at CMS, according to reports from CMS and the Community Oncology Alliance.
Immuno-oncology drugs have the potential to improve the level of care in many respects, but they bring with them a host of problems related to implementation that require a completely new set of strategies.
The 340B Drug Pricing Program, designed to provide support for out-patient drug purchases, severely lacks federal oversight, said BRG Healthcare, the business advisory group, in a report sponsored by the Alliance for Integrity and Reform of 340B (AIR340B).
The Community Oncology Alliance got most of its 2016 Christmas list. CVS Caremark dropped its plan to cut physician-owned dispensaries out of Medicare Part D oral drug distribution, CMS eased off the gas pedal on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, and the Medicare Part B Drug Payment Model has been discontinued for now.
Cota, a New York-based precision informatics company, has developed what it says will be a significant aid for oncology practices working to conform to the expectations of CMS’s Oncology Care Model, which is designed to encourage physicians to strive for better patient outcomes and lower costs.
For independent oncology practices, 2016 was a year of struggle—struggle to achieve new levels of reporting to CMS, and struggle to improve interaction with patients and coordination of care.
Boston-based Berg Health is attempting to do away with a traditional form of scientific inquiry in an attempt to find better answers.
Delivering patient-centered care is not an easy task in an increasingly complex environment, participants at the 4th Annual Institute for the Future of Oncology concluded at the June meeting.
Many things are happening with payer practices as a result of the plethora of new immuno-oncology agents.
CMS and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have confirmed the demise of the Medicare Part B Drug Payment Model "experiment" to cut margins paid to physicians on some of the most expensive drugs and introduce private sector thinking into drug purchasing and pricing systems.
After 2 years of reflecting on feedback from the medical community, the American Board of Internal Medicine has developed a new iteration of its Maintenance of Certification testing that it hopes will satisfy the needs of physicians.
To great fanfare, Hackensack Meridian Health of New Jersey and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center announced a co-branding partnership that they say would lead to highly fruitful collaborative research and make hundreds of clinical trial opportunities available to their patients.
The artificial intelligence computer program Watson for Oncology (WFO) achieved a high degree of concordance with tumor board recommendations in a double-blinded validation study in Bengaluru, India, according to results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
Bevacizumab has been granted FDA approval for platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, based on findings from phase III trails: GOG-0213 and OCEANS.
Staff attrition generally does not come in the size and shape it did for a small New England practice that constitutes the last independent oncology practice in Maine.
If any doubts remained that oncology practices were not going to be specific targets in the hacking of medical data, a breach at Central Ohio Urology Group has set the record straight.
For years, linear accelerator technology has had to be encased in concrete walls 3 to 4 feet thick so as to protect people on the outside from exposure to radiation.
The change of administrations in Washington, DC may undermine the future of a proposal to revise Medicare Part B drug compensation, a plan that has been widely criticized in the oncological community because of the potential reduction in profit margins it entails.
A test that may be considered beyond next generation in the oncological disease testing market is getting a trial run from Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey with help from a growing patient database known as COTA.
In the old days, not too long ago, doctors’ offices were full of paper records, which filled shelf after shelf. This cumbersome form of keeping track of patients was effective in its own way, but with the rise of modern medicine and the power of computing, there is a need to move beyond.
CVS Health has changed its mind about excluding physician-owned dispensaries from Medicare Part D drug distribution.
The latest company to suffer a public relations and stock price crisis based on its drug pricing strategy is Ariad Pharmaceuticals, which has been blasted by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) on Twitter and in a formal letter demanding justification for the price tag Ariad has attached to the chronic myelogenous leukemia drug ponatinib.
Edward P. Ambinder, MD, discusses advances on improving the interoperability of computer technology to facilitate the sharing and security of patient records for the purposes of furthering patient-centric, coordinated, and value-based care.
The Final Rule from CMS on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) eases the pressure on small, rural practices to meet reporting and performance standards and explains more about the intentions behind the recently announced 2017 transition year.
The tide of closings, mergers, and acquisitions among independent oncology clinics remains strong but appears to be tapering a bit
Patrick Conway, MD, says that the demonstration drug pricing plan, which would raise payment for low-cost drugs and lower payment for high-priced drugs, is chiefly about improving outcomes.
Andrew L. Pecora, MD, discusses the value changes that CMS is mandating, and how it takes enormous planning and study.
In its re-interpretation of CMS policy for Medicare Part D drug dispensing, CVS Health has gone against years of allowing in-house physician dispensaries to participate in Medicare Part D.
