Segment 9 - Impact of Healthcare Reform on Cancer Care

How would healthcare reform impact cancer care delivery and reimbursement? Will value-based models push for a more integrated and ideal care delivery for oncology patients?

Rebekkah Schear, MIA, thinks that the Oncology Care Model (OCM) is a good start and its impact will become clear over time. However, she does expect to see a positive impact on navigation care planning, with the patient at the center of the process. “We are moving from “an illness-centered perspective toward a person-centered perspective,” Schear said.

Michael Kolodziej, MD, said that he too, is looking forward to learning what implementation of the OCM will do, as data would be scrutinized for quality and process improvement while keeping the patient front and center. “The idea that you do things because this is the way we do things, and the patient’s kind of peripheral to all this, that’s disappearing,” he added.

"I think what we're seeing, and I hope will continue to be seen, is that patient centeredness is the point," Schear said, adding that "all opportunities moving forward to help patients and families sort of articulate our humanity and fore care systems evolve towards supporting patients in their individuality and to really look at holistic healing—healing's in the perspective of this multidimensional place and looking at people."