
WCOE: Employment Issues, Health Systems, Defining Value in Cancer Care
What Caught Our Eye (WCOE) Each week, we take a closer look at the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention. “Many clinicians believe that although patients may miss work during treatment, they will ‘bounce back’ in the longer term. The results of this study suggest otherwise and ...

ACOs and Delivering Care for Older Adults: Two Recent Articles That Caught Our Attention
"What We Can Learn by Listening to Older Adults" Chris Langston, a program director at the John A. Hartford Foundation, penned a recent Prepared Patient Blog post that resides on the Center for Advancing Health (CFAH) website. It refers to what many of us have learned from our work in patient advocacy which points ...

NCCS Applauds Test of Care Choices for Cancer Patients
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) applauds the recent decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to initiate the Medicare Care Choices Model, a project to evaluate the impact of permitting Medicare patients to receive ongoing curative care while also receiving hospice care. “NCCS has focused its ...

Amy Berman’s Perspective of Palliative Treatment Highlights Issues in “Triple Aim” Approach to Health Care Delivery
If you already know of Amy Berman, have heard her story, or have been fortunate enough to have spent time with her, you will read more about what words like "patient centered" and "choosing wisely" look like when carried out to treat metastatic cancer. And you will also be exposed to ...

NCCS Joins Colleagues in Commending the Work of the Senate Finance Committee on the SGR Repeal
NCCS joined colleagues in the Cancer Leadership Council in commending the work of the Senate Finance Committee on the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act of 2014. The legislation offers a responsible process for moving the Medicare program away from a system that emphasizes volume of services to ...

NCCS Senior Health Policy Advisor Ellen Stovall Responds to Susan Gubar’s “The Cost of Trials”
Susan Gubar's voice as a woman living with ovarian cancer (The New York Times Well Blog, March 20, 2014) clearly describes the dilemma of how to manage some of the most distressing features facing people who want to participate in a cancer clinical trial—namely access to these trials and the matters associated ...

NCCS CEO’s Article via CURE “Aiming to Improve Quality of Cancer Care”
In a recent article posted online via CURE Magazine, Shelley Fuld Nasso describes experiences that underscore the need for improved communication between patients and providers, as well as the evidence-base that informs NCCS' push for cancer care planning. The Institute of Medicine recently proposed a framework for quality cancer care ...

Oncology Times: NCCS-AEI Meeting Emphasizes Putting Cancer Patient First in Physician Payment Reform
A summary and overview of the recent "Putting the Cancer Patient First" meeting was posted via Oncology Times online. The meeting was co-hosted by NCCS and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on February 28, 2014 and convened leaders in health care policy to discuss issues that impact cancer patients and survivors. Read the summary >> The ...

NCCS Joins Alliance for Childhood Cancer in Submitting Comments to FDA
NCCS joined the Alliance for Childhood Cancer in submitting comments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following the January 2014 public workshop on complex issues in developing drug and biological products for rare diseases. The Alliance encouraged the FDA to consider the issues specific to pediatric cancers that may ...

Dr. Ezekiel J Emanuel’s NYT Article “In Health Care, Choice Is Overrated”
In recent months, there has been significant discussion among cancer patients, their physicians and other health care providers, and cancer organizations about the adequacy of the provider networks in their insurance plans. Cancer patients want assurances that they will receive quality care and can seek second opinions from those with ...