Doctors, as well as patients, stung by high cancer drug prices
The WSJ reports that patients aren’t the only ones stung by pricesfor Avastin and other expensive cancer drugs. Physicians are also getting burnt. While most drugs are prescribed directly to patients and picked up at a pharmacy, leaving the patient and/or insurance company with the bill (and the pharmacy with the overhead), most cancer drugs are delivered IV, and physicians must purchase them up front before a patient arrives for an infusion. As it may take up to 90 days (or occasionally more) for reimbursement to come through from a patient’s insurer for a drug, physicians are left footing the bill in the meantime, which is a burden for cash flow and a liability for a practice holding thousands of dollars of expensive drug in inventory. If a drug is wasted or goes unreimbursed, the physician has little ability to recoup the cost.
Reimbursement for oncology services has been broken for a long time, but recent changes and headlines in the news — from the high cost of cancer drugs and biologic agents to the possible slashes in Medicare reimbursement — are bringing this issue to a critical point. Why can’t we find a way to pay physicians better for their cognitive skills and the time-consuming activities of developing tailored treatment plans (and the research that goes along with it) and delivering these plans to patients rather than forcing them to run their practices as dealers of expensive drugs or boutique pharmacies for infusion?
Tags: cancer, costs, drug prices, oncologyRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Drugs and Meds, Health Care Costs, Hospitals and Doctors
2 opinions for Doctors, as well as patients, stung by high cancer drug prices
Blue Heron
Jul 12, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Jen,
Excellent post! I think the whole cancer thing is a racket and has been for some time. First it is very unfortunate for those that must endure and go through this terrible sickness. Second there are billions being spent trying to find a cure. Third as you post clearly puts it the drug costs are being past on to both physicians and patients when physicians should be better spent. I think you could write an entire post just on this issue alone. What a racket!
Gwen
Jul 13, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Until recently, I had no real knowledge of how the system works for oncologists and those being treated for cancer. Even now that my family is dealing with cancer, it is pretty nebulous. From our end, we face frustrations with diagnostic mistakes, difficulties with access and insurance coverage for visits, and inefficiencies in the health care system. Yet, as your post illustrates, even physicians face obstacles to providing high quality, efficient care to their cancer patients due to the burden of costly cancer drugs and lack of compensation for the time they spend developing treatment plans. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the third-party payers (i.e. private insurance companies) are making decisions about what and how to reimburse physicians. These for-profit companies are making decisions about services when they have no medical expertise and (it often seems) little empathy for the sick. When will this country realize that effective health care provision cannot and should not be about as many people as possible making a buck?! Only when we change our attitudes about health care will we see any real progress.
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