Different Treatment Options Require Consideration of Patient Preferences, and...
In “Breast Cancer Chemotherapy Varies Widely: Study Raises Questions About Early Treatment Choices,” Dr. Elaine Schattner, contributor to Forbes, directs readers to a recently released study that...
View ArticleThe Difficult Question of When to Stop Treatment
Yesterday, I stumbled across the Twitter chat #whentostop, hosted by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), addressing one of the most difficult questions anyone with cancer has to face: when is it time...
View ArticleFocus on the Care Video: Emily Lee Discusses Emerging Payment Models in...
Emily Lee, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress (CAP), spoke to us at the NCCS Cancer Policy Roundtable in April of 2014. Lee was a speaker on a panel titled “Bundles or Episodes of...
View ArticleNCCS Invites Washington, DC Residents to Create a Community Art Mural to...
Join us Saturday, August 23, from 9am to 4pm, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC. “When a picture of a butterfly appeared… On my mom’s hospital room door, I knew....
View ArticleChallenges of Care Coordination in a Fragmented Health Care System
Several articles caught our eye this week about the complexities of our reimbursement system and the lack of incentives in our current system for the kind of care patients value and need – time with...
View ArticleAddressing the Gaps in Treatment Planning and Coordination with the PACT Act...
Recently we were reminded of the importance of the Planning Actively for Cancer Treatment (PACT) Act, H.R. 2477 as we participated in the Lymphoma Research Foundation’s (LRF) Lymphoma Education and...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: Patient Empowerment in Discussing End-of-Life...
In Elana Gordon’s segment with NPR titled, “Hello, May I Help You Plan Your Final Months?” she reports on the work of Vital Decisions, a company that provides counseling via phone to beneficiaries of...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: Paying Doctors to Talk About End-of-Life Care
In The New York Times article, “Coverage for End-of-Life Talks Gaining Ground,” Pam Belluck writes about efforts to reimburse physicians for having difficult but critically important discussions with...
View ArticleNCCS and CLC Policy Comments: 2015 Physician Fee Schedule
Recently, NCCS joined colleagues in the Cancer Leadership Council (CLC) in submitting comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the 2015 Physician Fee Schedule, which governs...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: Dr. Susan Love Discusses the Pros and Cons of...
There are as many questions as there are differences of opinion about what constitutes the best evidence when it comes to appropriate cancer screening and then appropriate treatment once a diagnosis of...
View ArticleNCCS Offers Comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation on...
Click here to view all of NCCS’ policy comments. Recently, NCCS submitted comments to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation on its proposed Oncology Care Model (OCM), an episode-based payment...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: “Why I Hope to Die at 75″ and a New IOM Report...
Are we finally ready to address the repeated recommendations in these series of reports and to make it possible for our healthcare system, providers of care, and our religious leaders to be more ready...
View ArticleGuest Post: Study Reports Nurse Navigators Make a Difference
As a cancer survivor and nurse educator, I am always interested in how we can advocate for the care of cancer patients and recommend policy changes. Recently, I had the occasion to experience the...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: Over-Diagnosis, Over-Treatment, and a Broader...
In a Health Affairs blog post entitled, “Reconceptualizing Health and Health Care: Why Our Cancer Care Delivery System Is In Crisis,” Carolyn Payne and William Dale suggest that the health care system...
View ArticleIncremental Improvements Are Not Enough
Two years ago, the world lost an extraordinary person, my dear friend Dr. Brent Whitworth. He was a few days shy of his 42nd birthday when he learned of his diagnosis – stage IV kidney cancer – and he...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye this Week: The Open Payments Data Release
This week, coverage of the release of data on payments by drug and device manufacturers to physicians caught our eye. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the first round of...
View ArticleCelebrating Hope and Community at the Dempsey Challenge in Lewiston, Maine
Two weeks ago I was able to represent NCCS at the Dempsey Challenge with the Amgen Breakaway from Cancer partners. Breakaway from Cancer (BFC) is a national initiative founded in 2005 by Amgen which...
View ArticleTurning the Tide Against Cancer: NCCS CEO Presents Survivor Perspective on...
We have a lot of bad incentives built into our system, says @sfuldnasso at #T3Cancer — ThinkWellPoint (@ThinkWellPoint) “We need truth telling so patients understand the full influences on their care”...
View ArticleWhat Caught Our Eye This Week: Elevating the Discussion on Living Well Until...
What caught our eye this week was extensive coverage of Dr. Atul Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal: Medicine and what Matters in the End. In it, he examines end-of-life care in our country, and he...
View ArticleEllen Stovall Presents the Patient Perspective on Overtreatment at the ASCO...
On October 17th, NCCS Senior Health Policy Advisor Ellen Stovall will be presenting the patient perspective on overtreatment at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in Boston. Ellen will be discussing the...
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