Get Cancer. Lose Your Job?
The harsh reality is that people who have had cancer treatment are sometimes perceived as a burden on a working group
Why I Support Health Care Reform
Profit is not what medical care is about, or should be about. What we need is a simple, national health plan, available to everyone, with minimal paperwork and, yes, limits to care.
73 Cents: A Film on Regina Holliday’s Work, and Patient Advocacy Through Art
The unreasonable price of the medical records, combined with the delay in receiving them, exemplifies unnecessary harms patients encounter in an outdated, disjointed health care system.
Oh, No Methotrexate!
Methotrexate has been used in cancer wards for over 50 years. And like other beyond-patent meds, it’s become less profitable to manufacture MTX compared to much costlier new agents.
Notes on Wendell Potter, and Why Companies Support the Individual Mandate
The current debate about the individual mandate reminded me to post this – About a year ago, I had the opportunity to hear Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin – an insider’s sharp critique of the insurance industry, speak at a meeting of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. Despite […]
Final Word on Avastin, and Why We Need Better Physicians
Today’s breaking breast cancer news is on Avastin. The FDA has just announced, formally, that it will rescind approval for the drug’s use in people with metastatic breast cancer. Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg writes this her statement: I know I speak on behalf of the many physicians that have been involved with this issue here […]
HCR Law Requires Insurers to Cover Routine Care for Patients Participating in Clinical Trials
Something I learned at the MBCN conference is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA, a.k.a. HCR), will require that private insurance companies cover the routine costs of medical care for patients participating in approved clinical trials. Medicare does so already, said Dr. Tatiana Prowell, an oncologist on the Johns Hopkins […]
Reducing Cancer Care Costs by Comparative and Cost-Effectiveness Research (CER)
Well, it’s the day after Labor Day, time to resume our discussion of Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care. We’ve reached the end of the list, on ideas to reduce oncology costs put forth by Drs. Smith and Hillner in the May 25 issue of the NEJM. Really this 10th and final point intended for […]
Reducing Costs by Better Integration of Palliative Care in Cancer Treatment
We’re up to point 9 on the list – and nearing the end – on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care from the May 26 NEJM. The suggestion from Drs. Smith and Hillner is that doctors better integrate palliative care into usual oncology care. The authors start this important section well: We can reduce […]
Reducing Cancer Care Costs: The Value of Physicians’ Cognitive Work
We’ve reached what may be my favorite of the proposed ways to reduce cancer care costs, published in the NEJM by Drs. Smith and Hillner. Idea Number 8 is to realign compensation to value cognitive services, rather than chemotherapy, more highly. What the authors are saying is that we’d save money if oncologists were paid more for […]