Focus on the Care Video: Emily Lee Discusses Emerging Payment Models in Cancer Care

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 Care: Are These Payment Models Workable for Cancer Care?” which discussed the development of models for cancer care bundles and episodes of care and the feasibility of their implementation. CAP is working with stakeholders, providers, payers, patient groups, and policymakers to determine how to best design a framework for bundled payments for cancer care, beginning with two of the most common types of cancer, lung and colon.

Lee also describes the role of patient advocates in the process, “I think payers have some idea of what patients might want, and providers also have some perspective of what they think patients might want, but it’s really important to hear from patients themselves.” She notes that some of the quality measures that matter the most to patients, such as quality of life and the effects on the ability to work, differ from the focus on survival rates, underscoring the need for more communication surrounding the issue of quality measures in cancer care.