Policies & Guidelines

Value-Based Cancer Care is focused on examining value within the context of healthcare stakeholder relations. Dr Pecora and his team at Regional Cancer Care Associates (RCCA) have changed the relationship between the practicing oncologist and the payer, which will have substantial effects on value.

Here’s a bold prediction for the new year. By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations (ACOs) —groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together to provide the full range of medical care for patients.

Interview with Linda Bosserman, MD, Clinical Oncologist and President of Wilshire Oncology Medical Group, La Verne, CA

New Orleans, LA—According to the American Medical Association (AMA) and many oncologists, the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) diagnostic coding system will be a needless and expensive burden to oncology practices, without enhancing patient care.

American adults would be willing to pay a median of $263 for a perfect prostate cancer prediction test and $232 for a perfect breast cancer prediction test, according to a recent survey (Neumann PJ, et al. Health Econ. 2012;21:238-251).

Miami, FL—Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing of genetic tests represents personalized medicine in evolution. High-throughput genetic technologies have made it possible to evaluate individuals at a relatively affordable price, but a number of technologic, social, regulatory, and ethical issues must first be settled before DTC genetic testing takes personalized medicine to new heights.

I never thought it would happen in the United States, but it has. We are critically close to running out of some chemotherapy drugs. It came as a shock to all of us, when we realized how severely the problem of drug shortages has started to affect our patients. The following case is but one example.

On November 30, 2011, the Office of the Inspector Gen­eral (OIG) of the US Depart­ment of Health and Human Services issued an advisory opinion (No. 11-18) to the web-based physician practice service provider athenahealth, tacitly approving the company’s new online service athenaCoordinator.

Ventura County Hematology Oncology Specialists has so far managed to avoid many of the financial difficulties facing a large number of community cancer practices. Value-Based Cancer Care asked Dr Parsa and Ms Rivera to discuss what makes their practice successful from a clinical and a business perspective.