Ted Okon Outlines the Importance of Payer-Provider Dialogues

The current dialogue occurring between payers and providers is critical in today's healthcare environment, and it's an interaction that certainly was not happening just 5 or 6 years ago, according to Ted Okon, executive director of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA).

Transcript (slightly modified)

What is the importance of the dialogue between payers and providers in the current healthcare landscape?

I think the dialogue between providers and payers in the current healthcare environment is absolutely critical. We need to talk, we need to communicate. We need to basically have a dialogue about what is working in payment reform and what is not. And the thing that we heard at COA's Payer Exchange Summit and we constantly hear at the summit's we've done with providers and payers, that oncology payment reform is actually working. And what we need to do is, we need to look at what's working, what can we do better, if something is not working then what can we do differently.

So this dialogue is really critical. And the interesting thing is that 5 or 6 years ago there was no dialogue. There was actually no constructive interactions between providers and payers, certainly not like we're seeing today.