President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden were in New Orleans on Tuesday to tout the Biden Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to boost funding research and treatment to prevent cancer deaths and help those living with the disease. Earlier in the day, the White House announced up to $150 million in awards to eight research teams across the country to develop technologies that will allow surgeons to provide more successful tumor-removal surgeries for people facing cancer. The Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded nearly $9 million to improve access to cancer screenings and follow-up treatments in underserved communities, part of the initiative's effort to expand preventive cancer care.

Patients covered under Medicare Part D will pay up to 79% less for 10 prescription drugs for chronic conditions, including ibrutinib for chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma and other blood cancers, starting on January 1, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. In August 2024, the agency released its final list of lowered drug prices for the 10 treatments selected under the price negotiation program.

More than 7% of patients participate in cancer clinical research trials, a new study shows—higher than the 5% historically reported. The findings, which were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, are the first to use national accreditation information from the Commission on Cancer to more accurately estimate participation rates.

Recent Supreme Court decisions curbing the power of federal agencies will hobble government efforts to protect public health, legal experts warn. The rulings will make it harder for some federal agencies to bring enforcement actions, give judges more leeway to second-guess agency decisions, and following a July 22, 2024, decision, make it easier to challenge long-settled regulations. Legal experts and health officials expect a gusher of litigation that will complicate the regulation of drugs, tobacco products, and cutting-edge medical technologies. The administration of government health insurance programs could be further mired in lawsuits, and decades-old agency decisions may be newly vulnerable to challenges.

As innovators and leaders, oncology nurses and advanced practice providers are increasingly collaborating with engineers to create or expand the use of technology to improve cancer outcomes.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that a Christian-owned business can’t be compelled to cover preventive medications as is required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but it determined a Texas judge carried out an “abuse of discretion” in his prior ruling by blocking federal agencies from enforcing the rule universally. In a decision it characterized as a “mixed bag,” the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services could not force Braidwood Management Inc. to abide by a preventive care mandate in the ACA. The court rejected another ruling, however, and remanded another one back to the lower courts.

The journey from cancer diagnosis to treatment with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a complex, costly, and multifaceted process influenced by various factors that shape the course of patient care. HSCT is particularly susceptible to racial, socioeconomic, and geographic disparities in access and outcomes, given its specialized nature and limited availability in just about 200 U.S. cancer centers.

When scheduling appointments for patients newly diagnosed with cancer, patient coordinators may have questions for the patient’s care team. Rather than interrupting direct care providers during their clinical duties, an oncology service access nurse can step in for support, bringing value to both patients and providers.

Complex cancer treatments like bispecific antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy are associated with equally complex side effects and complications. When patients experience signs and symptoms back home away from their dedicated cancer care team, how should they seek intervention? Should they go to the emergency room? The local urgent care facility? Call 9-1-1? And, if they do any of those things, will the healthcare providers in those settings know how to care for them?

For many cancers being treated with radiation therapy, evidence-based standards of care have transitioned to shorter treatment courses. However, Medicare’s outdated fee-for-service approach penalizes radiation oncologists for following those best practices. In May 2024, bipartisan lawmakers introduced a new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that would “modernize Medicare reimbursement for radiation therapy, safeguard access to high-quality cancer treatments, improve patient outcomes, and reduce health disparities while generating savings for Medicare,” the legislators said in a May 15 press release.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) today released a draft legislative proposal to address persistent economic problems leading to shortages of generic medicines plaguing America’s healthcare system, including chemotherapy drugs and ADHD medications.

The Cancer Equity Leaders is a diverse team of premier cancer research leaders working under the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities. NCI announced the group and its members in an April 2024 blog post.

In stark contrast to a nationwide decline, cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates are increasing in low-income U.S. counties, researchers reported in the International Journal of Cancer.

A record-breaking 323 drugs are currently in shortage in the United States, according to April 2024 ASHP data. In tandem timing, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced its plan to prevent and mitigate drug shortages and proposed new solutions for policymakers to consider in an April 2024 white paper.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) today announced their commitment to working on bipartisan healthcare legislation to prevent and mitigate shortages of critical generic drugs used by patients and providers in the United States. In a white paper released today, Wyden and Crapo outlined concerns raised by experts at a hearing held in the Finance Committee on December 5, 2023, as well as areas of interest and ideas the Committee is exploring to address the factors contributing to shortages through modifications to the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in late February 2024 called pharmaceutical companies to provide more information and a briefing to explain the ongoing shortages of several cancer drugs, including carboplatin, cisplatin, and methotrexate; amoxicillin; and stimulant medications.

Behind closed doors, House Republicans have shifted from optimistically cautious to expecting a government shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will have to choose in coming weeks between a fight with Democrats that threatens a shutdown, or a deal with Democrats that threatens his job. The government will start a partial shutdown unless a budget or spending stopgap is passed by March 1.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work with the U.S. Congress to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries maintain access to telehealth. Led by U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), the group sent HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra a letter on January 29, 2024, making the case for permanent telehealth legislation before the current waivers expire at the end of 2024.

A new Biden administration rule released Wednesday aims to streamline the prior authorization process used by insurers to approve medical procedures and treatments. Prior authorization is a common tool used by insurers but much maligned by providers and patients, who say it’s often used to deny provider-recommended care.

Unavailability of necessary drugs, supplies, and equipment—including an increasing number of lifesaving drugs with no viable alternatives—because of shortages are “making it nearly impossible to provide safe, high-quality patient care in a fiscally responsible manner,” healthcare professionals across a variety of disciplines reported on a 2023 ECRI and Institute for Safe Medication Practices survey.

Access to care and health equity are critical factors that affect diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for patients with multiple myeloma, particularly among Blacks and African Americans. Although multiple myeloma is relatively rare, accounting for about 3% of all cancers, it is the second most common blood cancer in Black and African American individuals, with a statistical tie in prevalence with lymphoma and leukemia. About 24% of those cases are in Blacks and African Americans. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) can detect smaller colon polyps that may be missed by the human eye during a colonoscopy, according to recent research. In studies evaluating how computer-aided detection (CAD), a form of AI, can assist in colon cancer screening, CAD increased detection rates for small adenomas (polyps) compared to a standard colonoscopy, but it did not surpass the skilled eyes of experienced gastroenterologists in finding larger adenomas.

White patients with commercial insurance receiving care in a community setting are most likely to receive systemic anticancer therapy at the end of life, researchers reported in study findings published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. 

The Cancer Moonshot plan identifies five priority areas, all of which artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to enhance. Two areas in particular lend themselves to AI: the call to "deliver the latest cancer innovations to patients and communities" and the aim of enhancing "the oncology model to place cancer patients at the center of decision-making."

The vast majority of patients, nurses, and physicians said that insurer policies and practices are reducing access to medical care, driving up healthcare costs, and increasing clinician burden and burnout, the American Hospital Association reported in survey results released in July 2023.

The BTK inhibitor ibrutinib is one of the first 10 drugs covered under Medicare Part D eligible for price negotiation authorized through the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in August 2023. Together, the 10 drugs accounted for 20% of Medicare Part D prescription drug costs during the 12-month period used to identify the initial group of negotiable agents. Medicare enrollees taking the 10 drugs covered under Part D selected for negotiation paid a total of $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs for the drugs in 2022.

In 2019, the mood was hopeful. As we looked ahead to the next decade, Republicans and Democrats in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate appeared to be at a consensus point on a major policy issue: access to affordable prescription medications for the American public.

A geriatric nurse practitioner who served as a Navy helicopter pilot in the Persian Gulf through two deployments, U.S. Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA) introduced new legislation that would allow more providers to use telehealth services, expanding access and reducing barriers for their patients.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, both the Trump and Biden-Harris administrations used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a primary authority to collect and disseminate information about the virus. Although the public initially lauded the agency’s efforts, the changing protocols and communication directions. In Washington, DC’s, often-polarizing political environment, CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, bore the brunt of the blame, and in May 2023, she announced her resignation effective June 30.

Nearly all adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with cancer who use the services of a population-specific clinic would recommend it to other AYAs with cancer, researchers reported during a session at the 48th Annual ONS Congress® in April 2023. They said that more than 90,000 AYAs aged 15–39 are diagnosed with cancer every year in the United States, a critical life stage in which cancer can deeply affect individuals’ social, developmental, educational, professional, and financial growth, making services like specialized clinics critical to an AYA patient population.

Noting the complexity of the human brain and brain tumors, Lawrence Tabak, DDS, PhD, acting director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), discussed in an April 2023 blog post the findings from a NIH-funded research that may suggest novel nanoparticles can help bypass the blood-brain barrier and deliver drugs to treat medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer diagnosed in hundreds of children each year.

Despite Americans spending more for health care than other high-income countries, the United States has the highest rates of death for avoidable or treatable conditions, maternal and infant mortality, and suicide, researchers reported in an analysis study published in January 2023 by the Commonwealth Fund.

Between travel time and expenses, missed work hours, and other factors, cancer care visits cost patients more than just a copay. A new study quantified the financial benefits of conducting those visits via telehealth versus in person, with researchers reporting that patients saved more than $150 in expenses and three hours in travel and waiting time per visit by using telehealth. They published their findings in JAMA Network Open.

Almost 11.5 million people signed up for healthcare insurance on HealthCare.gov from November 1–December 15, 2022, President Joe Biden announced in December 2022. Enrollment increased 18% over the same period in 2021. 

Sick. Americans are literally sick of the financial burden vulnerable patients endure because of high out-of-pocket, healthcare-related costs. The complicated and convoluted issue has no easy solution.

ONS member Ryne Wilson, DNP, RN, OCN®, care coordinator at University of Minnesota Physicians, joined an expert panel to discuss policy solutions for advancing equitable cancer care for the LGBTQ+ community during the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Patient Advocacy Summit in December 2022. The panel focused on issues affecting LGBTQ+ people with cancer, including homophobia, transphobia, systemic racism, and social determinants of health.

Four academic institutions will create centers of excellence dedicated to telehealth in cancer care to help healthcare providers increase its use in oncology practice, thanks to $23 million in National Cancer Institute (NCI) funding. The awards are part of NCI’s Telehealth Research Centers of Excellence initiative, which is supported by President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative.

Veterans exposed to toxic substances in service will have more access to cancer care and other medical assistance thanks to the recently signed Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act. The PACT Act passed with bipartisan effort by Congress in August 2022 and later signed into law.

Pending legislation would help residents save on prescription drug costs by empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, capping out-of-pocket costs, and limiting pharmaceutical price increases to the rate of inflation, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) said during a discussion with a plethora of healthcare professionals, including ONS member Heather Murphy, MSN, FNP, OCN®, president of the ONS Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts Chapter, about rising prescription drug prices at a Rhode Island conference in July 2022.

To support the objectives of President Joe Biden’s relaunched Cancer Moonshot initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded $215 million to three national cancer programs in June 2022. The funds are part of a $1.1 billion investment in cancer prevention and control.

To decrease cost and increase access to care, in July 2022 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a conversion factor of $33.08 for the 2023 Physician Fee Schedule.

Financial considerations are notable barriers for patients with cancer receiving follow-up cancer care, according to study findings from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program.

Research and practice changes funded through healthcare legislation have influenced today’s care delivery across all settings: hospitals, clinics, and even homes. And with their constituents laser-focused on health in today’s pandemic society, legislators have never made that happen so quickly.

Launched in 2016 as a pilot program from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center to develop new payment and delivery system models, the Oncology Care Model had a lofty goal: drive improvements in providing high-quality and cost-effective care.

A pandemic is not the time to experiment with Medicaid work requirements, the Biden-Harris administration maintained in April 2022 when it urged officials in Arkansas and New Hampshire to cancel their U.S. Supreme Court hearing appeals regarding the Trump administration orders and send the matter back to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for further action.

An April 2022 Biden-Harris administration executive order on Continuing to Strengthen Americans’ Access to Affordable, Quality Health Coverage will protect and strengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid. The order directed federal agencies and departments to review existing language and correct regulatory wording that might be inconsistent with the goals of offering more affordable access to health care.

Nearly a quarter of patients who are eligible for cervical cancer screening are overdue for their current tests, researchers said in study findings published in JAMA Network Open. The number grew nearly 10% since 2005—representing a steady increase in missed screening over time—and was higher in different sociodemographic groups because of factors related to social determinants of health.

Virtual appointments and other telehealth care allow patients and families to have ready access to cancer care from the comfort of their own home, Kevin M. Curtis, MD, medical director of the Center for Telehealth at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, said in a March 2022 National Cancer Institute (NCI) blog post praising the service. Curtis also highlighted telehealth’s role in addressing health disparities, its high satisfaction rate with both patients and clinicians, and the service’s future in cancer care research.

Cancer is one of the top five most expensive healthcare conditions to treat, costing the United States more than $157 billion annually. The payout from patients’ pockets may be even greater, with the cost of cancer medications alone standing at $895 billion per year. But paying for cancer during a pandemic? Even financially secure patients with healthcare coverage are struggling.