Barry Russo: Alliances Between Practices Are Invaluable to the Future of Cancer Care

Alliances are going to help community oncology participate in things that, as individual practices, they don‘t have the opportunity to do, said Barry Russo, chief executive officer of The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

Transcript

How will alliances among practices affect the future of cancer care?

I think they’re essential for the future of cancer care because without alliances, you don’t have the scale and scope to really participate in all the things that are coming down the pike. Artificial intelligence is not cheap, it’s expensive. New technology is not cheap, it’s expensive. Payer contracting and employer contracting and that’s what a lot of us are really hoping in the future happens, that the employers who are the real payers, that we can have direct relationships with them. All of that requires size and scale and I think those alliances are going to help community oncology participate in things that, as individual practices, we just don‘t have the opportunity to do so.

It was really the theory behind the whole start of US Oncology, and the theory behind Florida Cancer [Specialists] in American Oncology and the theory behind the sort of blossoming OneOncology alliance that’s developing a little more formal, a little more structured, but is that size and scale can really help you in the technology world and in the payer world and in the developing [accountable care organization] and employer market world.