Genetic Testing May Not Drive Up Health Costs - in Genetics, Genetic Testing from MedPage Today

Genetic Testing May Not Drive Up Health Costs - in Genetics, Genetic Testing from MedPage Today

Countering the Misincentivization of Cancer Medicine by Real-Time Personal Professional Education (febrile neutropenia medications)

Countering the Misincentivization of Cancer Medicine by Real-Time Personal Professional Education [Cancer Center Business Summit]:

Purpose:
In the United States, public and private payer misincentivization of medical care and the invisibility of costs to the consumers of that care have conspired to create unsustainable growth in health care expenditure that undermines our economy, diminishes our productivity, and limits our international competitiveness. Cancer medicine provides a small yet salient example. On average, Medicare reimburses oncologists 6% above the average acquisition price for essential anticancer agents and supportive therapies. The costs of these agents vary across a stunning five orders of magnitude, from a few dollars to more than $400,000 per course of treatment. The profitability to providers varies across approximately four orders of magnitude, from cents to thousands of dollars per treatment. National guidelines (National Comprehensive Cancer Network [NCCN], American Society of Clinical Oncology [ASCO]) help providers select the most effective therapies without regard for cost.

Methods:
We created an oncologist-to-oncologist professional education program to help cancer physicians optimally use expensive long-acting white blood cell growth factors, in accordance with these national guidelines.

JCO - open access: Editorial - Financial Hardship: A Consequence of Survivorship?

Financial Hardship: A Consequence of Survivorship?


"Despite this success on the treatment front, we have done
little in a concerted and well-planned fashion to investigate
and address the problems of survivors. It is as if we have
invented sophisticated techniques to save people from
drowning, but once they have been pulled from the water,
we leave them on the dock to cough and splutter on their
own in the belief that we have done all that we can."

—Fitzhugh Mullan, MD, physician, survivor of cancer, and
founding president of the National Coalition for Cancer
Survivorship

Vermillion plans to reduce headcount, expenses - financial news (OVA1)

Vermillion Inc. VRML -2.76% plans to reduce its headcount and other expenses and focus on strengthening sales of its ovarian cancer testing product (OVA1)  this year.

The utility and cost of routine follow-up procedures in the surveillance of ovarian and primary peritoneal carcinoma: a 16-year institutional review

CONCLUSION: Ultimately, serial imaging and the CA-125 assay detected the highest number of ovarian cancer and PCC progressive disease cases in comparison to physical examination and vaginal cytology, but nevertheless, all of the procedures were conducted at a considerable financial expense.

The stress process in palliative cancer care: a qualitative study on informal caregiving and its implication for the delivery of care

JAMA -- Incomplete Financial Disclosure in: A 70-Year-Old Woman With Shingles: Review of Herpes Zoster, January 26, 2010, 0 (2010): 2010.110