All Oncology Pharmacy OI Articles

Presbyterian Healthcare Services developed a unique service, offering patients with cancer certain clinical interventions and wellness checks in the comfort of their home that is provided by the Albuquerque Ambulance Service Mobile Integrated Health team.

The overall cancer rate among adolescents and young adults is on a gradual increase, thus creating the need for oncology programs geared towards young adults and adolescents.

Pharmacy informatics can be leveraged to help clinical inpatient pharmacists ensure the safe use of oral oncolytics during a patient’s hospital stay.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the American Medical Association's (AMA's) finalized coding updates for calendar year 2022.

The Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) for calendar year 2022.

The Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) for calendar year 2022.

Put yourself first: this mantra is especially important today as we continue to grapple with the implications and fallout from the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Regardless of the reason, the ability to bill for discontinued services will depend on why the service had to be stopped and how it was addressed.

As we turn the corner toward 2022, for oncology to drive equity forward: We need every member and every discipline, patient, leader, payer, industry partner, and innovator working together to provide the most equitable care possible in a sustainable way.

While the number of oncology patients and survivors is increasing, the growth of medical oncologists has lagged behind, and advanced practice providers (APPs) play a critical role in filling this care gap.

In addition to the global pandemic, ongoing lawsuits from referenced biologics' manufacturers suing biosimilar manufacturers are having a negative impact on the development and approval of new biosimilars.

Learn the 10 feasible and impactful “how-tos” Summit participants identified within three domains—care coordination and communication, clinical trials, and acknowledging and mitigating implicit bias.

Because oral anti-cancer agents are most often administered outside of the clinic setting, it takes a multidisciplinary team to successfully manage these patients and their treatments.

In an interview with Oncology Issues, Dr. Weiss shares why she believes this work is important in all levels of healthcare—from the clinic to the boardroom.

Many times, being present, allowing the grief, and letting our patients know they aren’t alone is the only “treatment” we have. So, what sustains us? How do we do this every day?

At Northwest Medical Specialties, we, too, face challenges from staff stress and exhaustion. To address and overcome these challenges, our management team has made it a priority to bolster the resiliency of our staff.

St. Luke’s Cancer Institute, formerly known as Mountain States Tumor Institute, established its medically integrated pharmacy in 2010 to manage patients on oral oncolytics. To improve the workflow in the medically integrated pharmacy and assist busy providers with patient care, St. Luke’s Cancer institute’s pharmacy management team discussed opportunities to expand pharmacist responsibilities, including the implementation of a collaborative practice agreement.

Providers and staff at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, along with published literature, report that patients want to receive their therapies in the outpatient setting when possible

Rather than fielding its annual Trending Now in Cancer Care survey while cancer programs were experiencing unprecedented challenges due to the extended public health emergency, ACCC chose to facilitate conversations with its members to capture the lived experiences of the most pertinent issues impacting oncology practice and care delivery.

Over the last several months, ACCC members have experienced a rising trend of payer-mandated white and brown bagging. ACCC will continue to monitor and update members about issues related to white and brown bagging.

In 2019 the Association of Community Cancer Centers developed an education program to provide all members of the multidisciplinary care team knowledge and resources to help successfully integrate immunotherapies into the treatment of patients with RCC.

The issue of drug waste is nothing new in oncology. Drug vial optimization has been shown to be effective in using valuable medications that would otherwise have been wasted.

Key results from a national survey show a range of new initiatives.

Cancer programs are facing multiple challenges related to treating patients in a COVID-19 environment. Cancer programs need to deploy systems and processes to help navigate these patients into the healthcare system and to work through the backlog of new patients with cancer as quickly as possible within existing resources.

The 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed the following changes specific to telehealth.

Listed are my highlights of the ASCO 2020 abstracts, which were chosen if they were a practice-changing study or trial with important new advances.

To adequately address patient financial toxicity, institutions must assume responsibility for ensuring that patients understand their insurance coverage and anticipated out-of-pocket expenses. Institutions should also have procedures in place to navigate the pre-certification process and prevent claim denials that may ultimately end up as the patient’s responsibility.

With the advent of biologics decades ago, the practice of oncology was forever changed.

Oral oncolytic agents have several advantages over the parenteral route, including patient convenience, prolonged drug exposure, and non-invasive administration.

In response to the increasing complexity of oncolytic agents, the associated economic burden on the patient and health system, and the intricacies associated with alternative payment models (APMs), I suggest the need for widespread establishment of chemotherapy stewardship services.

With this dynamic change in treatment modalities comes a need to change our practice models to keep pace with innovation, quality care, and patient needs.

The cost of prescription drugs is at the forefront of discussions on healthcare reform. At our recent state oncology society meeting, the topic stimulated discussion about medication reuse and recycling programs

Patients with cancer experience a variety of difficulties in accessing and managing their medications. The Legacy Health Cancer Institute established an oncology pharmacy navigator to decrease barriers to patient access, reconcile medication lists, and alleviate the financial burden of cancer care.

In the Department of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina North Carolina Cancer Hospital, discarding partial drug vials was a significant source of waste. With their Innovator Award–winning drug vial optimization program, the program maximized the lifespan of drugs within single-dose vials and realized an annual cost savings of more than $40 million.

The ACCC Immuno-Oncology Institute developed a multidisciplinary curriculum workshop bringing together faculty experienced in delivery of immunotherapy with cancer program staff in the earlier stages of IO integration. Over the past two years, these IO Visiting Experts Programs were hosted by ACCC Cancer Program Members nation-wide.

Secretary Alex Azar has expressed strong interest in revitalizing Medicare’s Competitive Acquisition Program (CAP) and introducing negotiation into Part B drug pricing.

Long, written descriptions of chemotherapy and its side effects, particularly when prescribing multiple drugs, are often ignored by patients who are overwhelmed by their cancer diagnosis and treatment. From the perspective of the patients, it was clear that all patients needed basic information regarding chemotherapy, including how to react to different situations while on chemotherapy and specifics about the drugs they were going to receive.

Learn how process improvements in an outpatient infusion center may strengthen financial performance. Included are a review process for non-formulary medications and new drug or service request form.

Storage, handling, and disposal of oral agents; possible drug-drug and drug-food interactions; dosing requirements, a plan for missed doses, a refill process; and more on what your patients need to know about oral agents.

In August 2015 the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) released its much-anticipated “mega-guidance” on the 340B Drug Pricing Program, proposing new limits on the program but stopping short of a complete overhaul, prompting mixed reviews from stakeholders.

A key element in this design is the ability for patients to personalize their surroundings with lighting and other aesthetic features, giving patients an increased sense of control over their environment.

The shift from infused to oral agents has implications for patients and cancer programs. This 2011 ACCC Innovator Award winning program explains its pharmacist-managed approach.

This 2013 ACCC Innovator Award winner describes how their health system achieved the goal of establishing guidelines and standards of practice in all rural sites, both within and outside the system, to better ensure patient safety and quality care.

ASCO 2017 was filled with new information and long lines as 39,000 oncologists worldwide came together to hear the latest advances in cancer care.

In November 2014, St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute (MSTI), Boise, Idaho, initiated a pilot program to determine the feasibility of a pharmacogenetic testing program in a community cancer program.