Economics of Cancer Care

>Chicago, IL—Hospitalizations and readmissions add substantial costs to healthcare. The annual cost of 30-day hospital readmissions in the United States is estimated to be $16 billion.

Chicago, IL—The number of oral oncolytic drugs has increased dramatically, but despite increased convenience, there is growing concern regarding adherence, said Winson Y. Cheung, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia Division of Medical Oncology, Vancouver, at a session on adherence at ASCO 2013.

Removing copays may help boost mammography screening rates for all age-groups above age 40 years. One insurer found a significant increase in screening rates with the removal of a copay, said Jeffrey M. Peppercorn, MD, MPH, Medical Oncologist at Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC.

Hollywood, FL—Seismic shifts in the oncology landscape have led to pricing and policy changes that affect the delivery of quality care in oncology, said Michael N. Dubroff, DO, FACOP, Senior Director, Payer Support for Genentech, who lent his perspective at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

Hollywood, FL—The goal of balancing cost and quality leaves no stakeholder without a challenge, said Grant D. Lawless, MD, RPh, Director, Healthcare Decision Analysis Program, and Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Chicago, IL—For-profit hospitals are more likely than their nonprofit counterparts to treat elderly patients with breast cancer with an expensive form of radiotherapy—despite lacking evidence of its benefit, researchers from the Yale Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy and Effectiveness Research Center reported at the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

Chicago, IL—The rapid advances in cancer treatment, especially in personalized medicine, are occurring at an enormous financial cost to the healthcare system.

Chicago, IL—“Building Bridges to Conquer Cancer” was the theme of the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, as well as of the address of ASCO’s outgoing President Sandra M. Swain, MD.

Financial distress is prevalent among insured patients with cancer, and although most patients state a desire to talk to their physicians about costs, this discussion rarely occurs, according to a study conducted at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC.

An examination of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database from 1998 to 2008 revealed that a significant number of patients with cancer receive drugs that are neither indicated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the specific condition nor endorsed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) compendia—and 18% of the spending on cancer drugs is for off-label drug use.