Oncology Business Management

The current state of affairs in oncology care reimbursement is in flux, with the promise for dramatic change. It is hoped that change will foster value-based oncology care delivery, avoid the need to ration care indiscriminately, and allow for continued discovery and advancement. Good luck!

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

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (MK-3475) as a treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma following progression on ipilimumab.

Cancer is challenging in many ways. Trying to contain the costs of disease management may be the biggest challenge of all.

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.

The FDA has approved the next-generation ALK inhibitor ceritinib as a treatment for ALK-positive patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer following treatment with crizotinib.

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

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.

The FDA has approved the cobas HPV Test as a first-line screening tool for cervical cancer in women 25 and older, making it the first-ever approval for a diagnostic alternative to Pap smear.

Lawrence J. Schneiderman, MD, professor emeritus, Medicine/Family & Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), discusses preparing doctors for the fact that medical care will have to be rationed in the future.

The FDA has approved the anti-IL-6 chimeric monoclonal antibody siltuximab as a treatment for HIV- and HHV-8-negative patients with multicentric Castleman's disease.

Sumanta Kumar Pal, MD, assistant professor, genitourinary cancers, City of Hope, discusses the results of a retrospective analysis of the effect of prior abiraterone use on the activity level of enzalutamide in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

GSK and Novartis have struck a deal that will move all of GSK's oncology assets to Novartis, all of Novartis' non-flu-related vaccines to GSK, and will result in a joint consumer healthcare venture.

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

Ellen T. Matloff, MS, CGC, director, Yale Cancer Genetic Counseling Program at the Yale School of Medicine/Yale Cancer Center, gives an overview of the recent changes to the field of genetic testing.

The FDA has approved the VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab as a treatment for patients with patients with unresectable gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, based on a significant extension in OS.

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

The FDA has approved ofatumumab plus chlorambucil for previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who are considered inappropriate for treatment with fludarabine therapy.

Judith A. Salerno, MD, MS, president, CEO, Susan G. Komen, discusses access to care for patients with breast cancer.

David F. Penson, MD, MPH, director, Center for Surgical Quality and Outcomes Research Professor of Urologic Surgery, Paul V. Hamilton, M.D. and Virginia E. Howd Chair in Urologic Oncology, professor of medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses some of the advantages and disadvantages of a large urologic practice.

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.

I would like to begin by expressing my excitement about my new position as editor-in-chief of Oncology Business Management.

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

Five early-phase clinical trials exploring chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy have been suspended temporarily in response to the deaths of 2 patients with adult B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

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.