May 2nd 2017
The rollout of the Oncology Care Model from CMS has proven to be a challenging road, specifically involving technological challenges, as practices have scrambled to find seamless solutions to bridging old electronic health records with new "patches" designed for the OCM.
May 1st 2017
With the increase of oral medications in oncology, adherence has become a significant issue since patients take the drugs home with them, and whether or not they stick to a regimen is hidden from the provider's view.
April 28th 2017
Josh Cox, PharmD, moderated a panel discussion on legislative initiatives to combat the rising power of Pharmacy Benefit Managers at the 2017 Community Oncology Conference. In the talk, he touched on the difficulties of monitoring therapy for patients receiving their drugs from outside pharmacies as well as murkiness off drug pricing and cash flow within the PBM systems.
April 21st 2017
The real impetus for fueling the Cancer Moonshot is coming from community oncology practices, not large research institutions, according to the Community Oncology Alliance.
April 12th 2017
More than half (54%) of practices are struggling with rising costs of equipment and facilities, staffing costs, and administration expenses.
A set of draft recommendations for controlling price escalation in the Medicare Part B program has ignited fresh concern from the oncology community, which battled last year to overcome the Medicare Part B Drug Payment Model cost reduction experiment.
April 3rd 2017
According to results presented at the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting, 10% of patients showed impressive long-term survival in a phase I study of single agent anti-PD-L1 atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
April 1st 2017
Jessica Turgon, MBA, of ECG Management Consultants says that changes in 340B Drug Pricing Program rules and the CMS physician payment formula are possible.
March 30th 2017
The Republican-led Affordable Care Act repeal and replace effort has the potential to be revived, but majority leaders may not want to risk further political capital in a battle that could go against them, speakers said at this year's Association of Community Cancer Centers' CANCERSCAPE annual conference.
Daniel F. Hayes, MD, and Stephen S. Grubbs, MD, discuss the perception that ASCO has not been truly representative of smaller, independent oncology practices throughout the United States, and how they plan to remedy that.
March 23rd 2017
Robin Zon, MD, responds to questions regarding the fourth annual State of Cancer Care in America report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
March 22nd 2017
The Affordable Care Act has improved access to cancer care for millions of Americans, and many new drugs and new indications for existing cancer drugs were approved in 2016, but there are frontiers in improving cancer care that include information barriers, disparities in the availability of rural care, and stressors on physicians and oncology practices, ASCO said in its annual report State of Cancer Care in America: 2017.
March 17th 2017
President Donald Trump has called his fiscal year 2018 budget proposal a "blueprint for making America great again," but oncological societies have been quick to denounce the budget plan, released Thursday, March 16, as a huge potential setback to health efforts in general and specifically to the fight against cancer.
March 14th 2017
Andrew L. Pecora, MD, has been awarded the inaugural Rosemarie J. Sorce Endowed Chair in Innovation at Hackensack Meridian Health.
March 12th 2017
For television personality, author, and lifestyle maven Sandra Lee the roots of her controversial decision to have a bilateral mastectomy go back to her childhood, when her grandmother was diagnosed with an advanced and aggressive form of stomach cancer.
March 11th 2017
Healthcare resource use and costs remain high among patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, indicating a need for better targeted treatments for this patient class.
The so-called butterfly effect, in which a small creature can cause something on the scale of an earthquake merely by flapping its wings, is fodder for debate on whether the digital revolution in medicine can deliver on its promise for precision medicine.
February 22nd 2017
Oncologists discuss their experience and best practices with phone triage programs.
February 21st 2017
Immuno-oncology drugs can improve the level of care in many respects, but they bring a host of problems related to implementation that demands a new set of strategies.
February 15th 2017
A group of doctors and other healthcare industry professionals have set out to develop a more efficient tool for assessing the true value of immuno-oncology drugs.