Tony Berberabe, MPH

Patients with advanced cancer who received early specialized palliative care reported better quality of life and satisfaction.

A new reimbursement program initiated by WellPoint, Inc., looks to pay oncologists an additional $350 a month for each patient who is enrolled in and follows one of the insurer's recommended cancer treatment regimens

Nearly 72% of office-based physician practices were using electronic health records (EHRs) in 2012, marking the slow and eventual decline of paper medical charts, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics. From 2007 through 2012, use of any type of EHR system increased across all physician and practice categories, with the exception of HMO-owned practices.

Physician practices that provide care to patients who have enrolled in the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health exchanges are finding it difficult to complete some basic administrative tasks.

For patients whose colorectal cancer has spread to the liver, and confirmed by computed tomography (CT), further imaging scans before surgery added little benefit when compared to patients who did not undergo further imaging.

Community oncology practices are at a crossroads despite the maturity of the marketplace. Running an efficient oncology practice is getting tougher and tougher.

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University's Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a model for the establishment of a comprehensive multidisciplinary geriatric oncology center to help combat the over or under treatment that elderly oncology patients often face.

Collecting payments from patients is difficult, so practices need to adapt so that collecting revenue from patients comes just as easily as collecting reimbursement from insurers.

The reductions in reimbursement for chemotherapy drugs after passage of the Medical Modernization Act (MMA) had a distinct effect on the administration of cancer drugs for patients in the last 14 days of life.

Despite repeated attempts to pass a permanent fix to address Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, efforts by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have stalled again.

With the growth of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and cuts to reimbursement fees for chemotherapy that is administered in physician offices

Payment reform in oncology is not new, but since most of the models proposed in the past have required wholesale changes in practice, care delivery, or administrative structure, oncology practices have been reluctant to embrace significant change.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have released a tool to look up an individual clinician's reimbursement record, but its ease of use remains to be seen.

Richard S. Pelman, MD, Juan A. Reyna, MD, and David F. Penson, MD, all large urology organization leaders, cited managing bureaucracy, PSA screening, and in-office ancillaries as top priorities.

A review study of trends in patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer from 1975 to 2009 suggest the cancer has been overdiagnosed, and therefore overtreated, according to Louise Davies, MD, MS, and H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH.

Only 44% of large physician practices, hospitals, and health care systems have reported adopting a bundled payment system.

A physician's confidence level in his genomic knowledge plays a significant role in attitudes towards genomic tests, especially in tests that look for changes in DNA that are taken from patients' tumor samples

With the recent economic downturn and a proliferation of patients enrolled in high deductible health plans, oncology practices are placed in the unenviable position of having to collect payments from patients.

Employing nonphysician providers (NPPs) by physician practices has grown in the past 15 years

In addition to the clinical skills lectures included in medical school curriculum, second-year medical students at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, NJ, are also receiving a course in understanding the basics of billing and coding

Epizyme, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech, opted for independence, with a successful IPO in 2013.

Among physicians, oncologists fall slightly above the middle in terms of compensation, with average earnings reported at $290,000.

Even as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) examines the implications of the ICD-10 delay there are some steps oncology and hematology practice managers can take now before the rollout gets into full swing.

Small oncology practices employing fewer than 50 full-time employees might consider looking to the Small Business Health Options Program offered through the Affordable Care Act.

A delay in the launch of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) web site that tracks the financial relationship between physician and industry may prevent physicians from fully reviewing the data.

Buckling to calls for transparency and a Wall Street Journal court case requiring the agency to provide public access to physician billing records, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a database containing transactions worth $77 billion by 880,000 physicians and physician practices certified to collect from Medicare

Community oncologists and hematologists who participate in the Medicare Electronic Health Records Incentive Program may be subject to fee adjustments from the agency beginning January 1, 2015.

The use of immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer has had limited exposure, but Aduro BioTech, Inc, has had phase II success with an approach in which two vaccines are administered. The vaccines, GVAX Pancreas and CRS-207, are administered to patients sequentially.

While the sustainable growth rate (SGR) debate has been put off for 2014, what should physicians be looking to as the transition to ICD-10 has been delayed for the second time in two years?

Providers cited issues related to insufficient standards, concerns about how privacy rules can vary among states, difficulties in matching patients to their records, and costs associated with exchange