Clinical Oncology News
Independent News for the Oncologist and Hematologist/Oncologist
Some excerpts here:
“Washington—Balancing personalized cancer care with the need to lower health care costs relies on a number of factors, including thinking rationally about cancer treatments, better educating patients about their options, and educating payers, said a panel of oncology experts at the Association of Community Cancer Centers’ (ACCC) national meeting.”
“There are a few theories about how to reduce spending on oncology, said Peter Bach, MD, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. One is to shift the risk for discretionary spending to oncologists. A payer would provide an oncologist with a lump-sum payment to cover all costs for a typical patient with breast cancer, for example, and the oncologist would then be responsible for achieving high-quality care without overspending.”
“Another theory calls for removing physicians’ financial incentive to spend health care dollars.”
“A third idea, being employed at his hospital, is to make treatment decisions piece by piece while considering cost, Dr. Bach said. For example, Memorial Sloan-Kettering decided not to stock the drug ziv-aflibercept (Zaltrap, Sanofi/ Regeneron) in its formulary for patients with advanced colorectal cancer because it was more than twice the price of a similar medicine, Bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech/Roche).”
“Patients tend to get “emotionally stuck in a place where they cannot make a rational decision,” Mr. Cohen said, and tends to choose the most expensive treatment, the one that will extend their lives for a short time or have the fewest side effects, without perspective.”
http://www.clinicaloncology.com/ViewArt ... a_id=24625
***”Payer” refers to insurance companies
After reading the ENTIRE article, I came away a little perturbed. Am I off base? Without PERSPECTIVE…..Did they just call us stupid???? Uninformed my butt! I’m reading some of the same publications you “GODS” are and I am a mere mortal! Emotional….YES it IS MY husband I’m considering, but again I am NOT STUPID! AND by the way DR…… how much DID you make on the drugs you prescribed for my hubby????
This is not the FIRST article I have read discussing the new protocols, and cost factors associated coming down the pike for Clinical Trials. Plus it will be a COLD day in you know where, before I let the insurance company tell us what my hubby can and cannot try if there is a decent shot it will work & he is ready, willing and able. I will meet them in the parking lot with a Louisville slugger and my hubby’s name in Glitter & sequins on its side!
Wife of Mike,
Vicki
But seriously this is serious stuff and we are talking about people's lives, people we love dearly. When I read story after story about all of this health insurance c?#p, well, I find it all to be so shameful. How can a society which is supposedly based on Christian values treat it's citizens who are sick so shabbily. Why can't we have universal healthcare for all like other countries. It is all such a complicated, expensive mess. During the last month of my husband's life when his health was rapidly deteriorating, I spent hours and hours and hours, lost plenty of sleep, drove an hour away to get help and was stressed out trying to get him signed up on the health exchange. His PCIP plan was going away and we were given a deadline. He could not be without health insurance. I felt that I was being held hostage by a system that was impossible to use. How could they give me a deadline when the system was destined to fail each time I tries to sign up. At one point the deadline was changed to Dec 24th. Well, that was exactly how I wanted to spend my last Christmas Eve with my DH, on the phone or computer. NOT! I was wasting precious time that should have been spent with my husband. All in all, I was unsuccessful. In the meantime, I got a notice from Dennis' PCIP plan that they would extend his enrollment thru the month of Jan. 2014, but we would have to pay another deductable just for that month. We had already met the deductable for 2013 when they changed the insurance in July 2013 and thus had to meet another deductable for the remainder of the year. On Dec 27th my DH was scheduled for a round of chemo which he received at our local hospital. I had decided that paying the deductable was worth it. I was so defeated and frustrated trying to sign up on the ACA Health Exchange. I had my daughter come to sit with my husband in hospital for a while, so I could go to the post office to mail the PCIP premium. As soon as I returned to the hospital and walked thru the door, my DH, Dennis sat up in bed, said he could not breath and coded. He spent the rest of the day and night on a ventilator in the ICU then the next week at hospice house before his ultimate death. In Feb 2014, I sought the help of an agency to sign myself and some of my family members up for health insurance via the excange. The agent was ultimately successful signing us up but told me that he had spent at least 15 hrs on the whole process. Last week, I went back to the agent's office to add my 23 year old daughter to our health plan. She had just graduated from college and was losing the plan that she had thru the college. The agent was on the phone for at least 1 1/2 hrs with the ACA Health Care exchange and was unable to complete the transaction. They said they would call me back sometimes between 10 am and 2 pm when the computer glitches are fixed. So here I wait for that phone call. It has been 3 days. What a never ending nightmare. There has got to be a better way. I can't imagine that our story is that unique.
