ONCare Specialty Consultants

https://lnkd.in/eBKkP655 Added consolidation is of value for many involved. There will be lots of potential synergies in operations, costs, and possibly delivery of services. Will this translate to improved outcomes, patient experience, efficiencies in care delivery, patient directed choices and overall experience? Individualized patient care is more critical now than ever before, so hopfully, this acquisition will present more options for patients to choose from..... The operative term there is "choose." We all deserve the ability to drive out own experiences while/IF understanding the pros and cons or each option.

https://lnkd.in/eMMCUwKe Old news overall but glad the reporting isn’t totally over. This has been an alarming reality surrounding oncology landscape and the dollars exchanged, for many years now.

indeed. It's quite easy for the rad onc community and oncology at large to be quick to adopt all of the new therapies and interventions available. However, a tempered embrace of negative studies and their implications/teaching points, should remind us all that the best intentions to be early adopters or to help our poor prognosis patients, may not be ready for confident implementation. Within the tumultuous landscape of new diagnostics, evolving treatment availability, lack of longer term data, dropping reimbursements/relevency, and diminishing time and energy available during each work day, it is easy to see why things may be running without clear direction, and these topics of negative trials, or even worse poorer outcomes as a result of early adoption, are excellent reminders to be transparent and engaged as partners with our patients. Transparency and clear communication about what we "know" and what we "do not know" is as important now than it has ever been. Informed consent is not just a legally required document, it is an inherent philosophy entertwined with the hippocratic oath.

Authors Heather McGee, Terence Williams, and Percy Lee explain differences between recent studies using radiotherapy with immunotherapy and possible reasons for their different outcomes. https://ja.ma/3yHJnU7

https://lnkd.in/eQ8eX2kR Great tool to learn about and to know about. Kudos to NIH for shining light on such integrative and powerful interventions.

Another helpful though often softly addressed aspect of patients' care and experience. While it helps to point patients in the directions of these interventions and practices, it is more helpful to practice them yourself as a care provider and to share with patients, your own personal experience. Empathetic and practical guidance goes further than to enhance the effectiveness of such reccomendations.

https://lnkd.in/e9_Mh_av This is truly groundbreaking and a new frontier upon which to further explore for these rare and aggressive tumor types. We seem to be on the precipice of many new horizons and pioneering studies like this will continue to open up new avenues of care and treatment going forward.

Like any art or behavior, practice is the key to developing a proficiency. be patient, with practice a comfort and benefit will come. Initially, many can feel anxious or frustrated with the all too common, "Am I doing it right?" syndrome. Trust in the practice of meditation and be willing and open to trying different methods. This is by no means a one size fits all, whether it be with your eyes closed or open, sitting, or lying, alone or in a group, virtual or in person.... Comforting piece written to cover the basics with a primer. And great to see that it is out of the NIH, which seeks to harness comprehensively beneficial interventions from a western point of view.

Well communicated piece about the statistical trends we are seeing in the youth today. Like many other experienced and busy oncologists, we are seeing younger and younger patients with common diagnoses. This does merit a deeper dive into the genetics and lifestyle issues leading to these trends. The immediate impact is on advocating for screening at younger ages when there is a concern for an at risk population. In reality, younger screening ages are likely meritted, but it takes years and resources to show such a need, not to mention, logistics, cost and staffing issues to accomodate such an increased volume of said tests to be analyzed or reviewed. Such practice changes do have a lag, so yet another reason to develop a mentality of advocacy and individualized insight into one's own health.

https://lnkd.in/gkmYYTnQ After a summer of travel and lack of posts, this is one which continues a thread of obvious and real waste and abuse, often "sugar coated" or glossed over by healthcare systems. In today's landscape of exhausted physicians and patients alike, many aren't even well informed enough to know who or where to focus disruptive energy for the betterment of all individuals. The landscape is confusing and even moreso, the big players are heavily invested in making it difficult to understand why it seems so difficult to understand the core nature of the problems.... It's not that complicated, but most of us don't speak the language or have the time to become fluent in the processes working against us all. This is an insight into the tethered incentives, which are not patient oriented, that cause us all to wonder why our cost per individual for health care is more than any other country in the world while our outcomes are nothing speacial or even in the top 10 regarding longevity or oncologic outcomes. Hospital systems are i n bed with PBMs often, and legislation is not in place to provide the resources to audit prospectively or retroactively, the vast majority of dollars attributed to health care. Whether it's a for profit or not-for profit, academic or community setting, qualifying for these programs, like 340B, is not as difficult or objective as we would like to think. As a result, many community based hospital CEOs, employed mediocre physician "leaders", PBMs, and government accounting abysses, absorb and account for many millions everyday, which somehow get tagged as helping patients have access to care. It's a bit of an old and tired discussion, as this abuse has been ongoing since the ACA was implemented and former accounting and finance firm consultants transitioned into healthcare CEOs. The corporatization of healthcare and the systematic delivery of said care, is fraught with "salesmen" pushing product/treatment. And one wonders why many current screening tools offered at affordable rates are designed to funnel consumers towards treatment directed providers.