Health care financing in radiation oncology is a multifaceted issue. On one hand the field itself is constantly evolving improving that way that we treat cancer. It is important for these changes to occur and the patients deserve the very best methods of treatment for their cancer. However these changes tend to bring with them, greater costs not only to the facility, but eventually the patient. It is important that physicians use technology with a grain of salt to treat their patients. The advanced technologies should never be used only to generate revenue, they should only be utilized if deemed necessary for the control of a patient's cancer. Many times, more simple treatment methods are just as effective, even if there are more advanced methods available in a department. I recall hearing administrators talking about how we have this technology now, and we need to utilize it as much as possible to pay for it. I don't agree with this thinking if it means requiring patients to pay more for their treatments just so our technology meets a certain level revenue generation.
The other issue of concern is insurance coverage for cancer patients. It was heart-wrenching for me to watch patients struggle to pay for their co-pays, medications, and sometimes transportation and lodging, all while fighting for their lives. It is just not right that patients have to decide between healthy food which is just as important in healing and getting treatment. In my opinion, patients should just have to focus on healing, not the other issues. The reasons why they had to worry about them were: they lost insurance coverage because they couldn't work, their insurance was not adequate to cover their treatment, or lastly they lost their income because of their disease and did not have short term disability insurance. It seems that a good government program could see to that patients are able to receive the care that they need for treatment of the cancer without having to lose everything in the process, or go into severe debt.
Part of the new health care reform focuses on prevention and treatment of chronic disease. For patients that battle their cancer for months and years, this is a chronic disease and one that could greatly benefit from government assistance. At the same time, there needs to be more health care available to those that are under-served so that they can have their cancers prevented or detected in earlier stages. The trend currently is that those of low socioeconomic status have their cancer diagnosed at much later stages when they are advanced or metastatic, because they did not have adequate health care to detect it when it was in its curable stages. So basically people lose their lives to advanced cancer that could have been cured if they would have been able to have the necessary medical care earlier in the process.
As you can see there are many issues in radiation oncology regarding the financing of this type of health care, and many of the solutions start with physicians and administrators acting ethically to treat their patients.
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Thanks Melissa for commenting. I think it's important for people to know that more technology does not mean better outcomes. If anything, it means higher costs to maintain the equipment and usually more pay for people operating and using the machine. An important point that you bring up is the fact that more simple treatment methods are just as effective, even if there are more advanced methods available in a department. Treatments should be cost effective.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I agree with what was posted here. As a nurse I truly believe that all health care professionals need to consider cost when deciding on the best course of treatment and that we should not be pushing for unnecessary procedures to cover the costs of the equipment; for example I can think of at least one new antibiotic that is highly effective but incredibly expensive, in the neighborhood of 300 dollars per pill with a course of treatment needing about 60 pills, and though this is effective there are other commonly used antibiotics that are still effective and considerably less effective. One of the biggest catches of health care reform is the incredible cost that it will incur for us all; we as health care professionals need to seek ways to keep costs down and an easy one is advocating for effective treatments that are still cost considerate.
ReplyDeleteI think it is unfortunate that money is being spent for technologies that cost the patient and facility more money. This becomes especially problematic when other technologies and treatments are just as effective and cost less. I think facilities need to be regulated on their purchases of major pieces of equipment to make sure they truly are beneficial.
ReplyDeleteThanks for contributing to this class blog; I appreciate the important points you offered in your post. Please feel welcome to comment on any other part of this blog.
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