Latest Conference Articles

Experts from healthcare policy organizations and advocacy groups that cater to Medicare enrollees exchanged best practices and proposed policies to help alleviate access issues during the Cost-Sharing Roundtable, co-hosted by the Patient Access Network Foundation and The American Journal of Managed Care®, on February 23, 2018, at the Barbara Jordan Conference Center in Washington, DC.

Healthcare cost-sharing remains a significant barrier to healthcare access, especially among patients with chronic conditions or those with financial constraints, and could prevent patients from getting much-needed health services, use of diagnostic tests, or result in adherence issues due to patients skipping doses or not filling their prescription medications. At the Cost-Sharing Roundtable on February 23, 2018, presenters and panelists—from academic institutions, health policy organizations, and charitable foundations—shared their findings and experiences with financial hardships faced by patients, and brain stormed ideas on how best to address the situation via practical advice and policy changes.

Leaders from charitable organizations that provide the safety net so patients can meet their healthcare costs and access their required medical treatment have concerns with the widening gap between patient financial needs and available resources. They were speaking at the Cost-Sharing Roundtable in Washington, DC, co-hosted by the Patient Access Network Foundation and The American Journal of Managed Care®.

Federally qualified health centers pay an important role in providing primary care and preventive services for patients who may have trouble accessing this care because of their insurance status, explained M. Kristina Wharton, MPH, of the Department of Global Health Management and Policy at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

The first results of the Oncology Care Model (OCM), a 5-year bundled payment demonstration from CMS, were released recently, and at a session at the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association Spring Forum 2018, Mike Fazio of Archway Health discussed the reconciliation statements from the first performance period of OCM, and where practices can look to make improvements going forward.

As cancer treatments improve and death rates decline, more patients survive who are at risk of becoming addicted to pain medications they were prescribed to treat their cancer-related pain, explained Merrill Norton, PharmD, NCAC II, CCS, CCDP-D, of the University of Georgia.

Positive quality interventions are part of a nationwide effort to standardize and improve oncology dispensing practices. They are best practices that are meant to be highly specific to a drug and help pharmacies and clinicians ensure that a patient-centric model exists, explained speakers during a workshop at National Community Oncology Dispensing Association (NCODA) Spring Forum 2018.

Patients with cancer, many who are older and on Medicare, are finding their medications are becoming unaffordable, Michele McCourt, senior director of the CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation, explained at the Cost-Sharing Roundtable, co-hosted by the Patient Access Network Foundation and The American Journal of Managed Care®.

K. Robin Yabroff, PhD, strategic director, Surveillance and Health Services Research Program, American Cancer Society, would like to see more longitudinal studies that can develop more informed policies to alleviate patient financial hardship. Yabroff was speaking at the Cost-Sharing Roundtable co-hosted by the Patient Access Network Foundation and The American Journal of Managed Care®.

Coverage from the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association Spring Forum 2018.

Jason Harris, associate director of policy and programs at National Health Council, talks about promoting high-value, patient-centric care that reduces costs.

A study being presented at the upcoming meeting of the American College of Cardiology found a dose–response relationship between walking and reduced heart failure risk.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) really makes a difference when studying men who’ve had a negative prostate biopsy, but their prostate-specific antigen goes up overtime or something changes and there’s a continuing concern for prostate cancer, said Christopher Kane, MD, professor of urology, University of California, San Diego.

Patient-reported outcomes can be critically important, said Justin Bachmann, MD, MPH, FACC, instructor of Medicine and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

As we think about the healthcare spending situation that we’re in now, it’s kind of like Groundhog Day the movie where Bill Murray woke up each morning and relived the same day until he made changes in his life and was able to move forward, said Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president, National Pharmaceutical Council.

Anne L. Schwartz, PhD, executive director of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, explains the core messages of new data on average spending for new Medicaid enrollees.

How can prescribers and other clinicians collaborate in order to help improve adherence to treatment to manage attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? And what keeps patients and their families from adhering to medication?

Although Gail Wilensky PhD, senior fellow at Project HOPE, is doubtful that imposing work requirements in Medicaid will have much effect, either positive or negative on enrollment, but she thinks it will help bring to the table states that were not otherwise willing to expand Medicaid.

Brenton Fargnoli, MD, medical director of value-based care and director of product marketing and strategy at Flatiron Health, addresses the issues electronic health records (EHRs) cause and what Flatiron Health can do to make things more efficient.

Shortly after Kentucky announced its new work requirements for the Medicaid program, a lawsuit was brought by residents against the government. Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and founding chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, explains what other states looking to implement work requirements might face.

There is a greater overall survival benefit for patients with recurrent urothelial cancer being treated with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy, according to long-term results of the KEYNOTE-045 trial.

The destination is to get to a point where we can spend our healthcare resources more wisely so that patients get the care they need and we all get the type of innovation that we really want, said Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president, National Pharmaceutical Council.

The prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) identified in an outpatient sample of 492 adults seeking mental health treatment was nearly 10 times higher than the prevalence identified in epidemiological studies, according to a poster presented at the recent 2018 Annual Meeting of The American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders.

Via Oncology is taking several steps to implement value into clinical pathways programs, explained President and CEO Kathleen Lokay.

We want to know all sides of the 2-risk model, like with any challenge or strategy, said Roger Brito, DO, national director for oncology, Aetna.

In prostate cancer, we're using combinations by looking to see how 1 drug may trigger an immune infiltrate or proteins that allow the tumor to resist the monotherapy, said Sumit Subudhi, MD, PhD, genitourinary medical oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Jason Harris, associate director of policy and programs at National Health Council, notes the importance of using real-world evidence to support value in payment models.

The addition of docetaxel to first-line long-term hormone therapy in patients with prostate cancer is associated with improved quality of life (QoL) benefits and cost effectiveness, according to study results presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.