Dr Basit Chaudhry on the Impact of the Oncology Care Model

As practices adopt the Oncology Care Model, practices should consider how this change will influence the practice and make efforts to continue engaging with the staff during this process, said Basit Chaudhry, MD, PhD, founder of Tuple Health.

Transcript (slightly modified)

The Oncology Care Model requires major changes to how a practice operates. How can they more easily make the transition?

I think a key thing in practice transformation is really understanding what the experience is like for your staff. I think talking with them and really getting their feedback as you are going through this kind of change is really a fundamental importance.

One of the practices that I work with very closely, they have a phrase inside that basically summarizes to “and just one more thing.” That kind of means that with all this change going on, they are always asked to do “and just one more thing,” and each thing may not seem really big but they just keep adding up and adding up and adding up. I think it is really important to engage your staff, engage your nurses, your care coordinators, and really understand what their experience is like and really learn from them about what’s needed to change the way the practice functions.

Are practices participating in OCM often participating in other payment models? If so, how does that impact the practice?

Yeah, I think that the issue between commercial and OCM is a really important one. Many of the participants are in multiple models and I think that creates some tension at times, but I think it also creates alignment because it enables people to use their care coordination function more broadly and develop economies of scale. So, I think there’s been really positive alignment for many of them. There are differences between the different models and I think that’s something the Community Oncology Alliance has provided a great deal of leadership on, trying to align that to reduce the complexity of implementing the different payment models that we see in the public sector and private sector.