Paying Physicians for Cancer Care

Cancer care represents a major segment of health care expenditures in the USA and the payment to physicians has been perversely oriented around the drugs they administer rather than the services they perform in meeting the complex needs of their patients. Recent history has demonstrated multiple attempts at reforming this payment, including most recently in CMS’ Oncology Care Model which will become Oncology First Model after 2021. In “Paying Physicians for Cancer Care”, Alice explains the inception of this out of whack system, considers reform efforts in commercial payment, looks closely at the OCM and criticisms of it and then sets forth the principles which apply in a new design suggestion which has been presented to CMS. She also sets forth contractual issues to make cancer care payment viable. The new proposal, initially presented in a White Paper which set forth five principles for program design, also figured as the focus of a Health Affairs blog post and an interview with Alice and two other members of the design team.