COA 2024: Back in Orlando With Reimbursement Challenges Topping the Agenda

When leaders of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) planned the agenda for the annual spring conference, they couldn’t predict it would come 6 weeks after a disabling cyberattack on technology that serves as air traffic control for prior authorization, claims handling, and payment.

But with the Change Healthcare attack serving as a case study in the dangers of vertical integration, COA leaders and members are headed to Orlando, Florida this week for a Community Oncology Conference tailor made to address this event and other ongoing challenges in reimbursement to community providers.

COA Conference 2024 | Image credit: COA

“Stronger Together,” is the theme of this year’s meeting, which takes place at the Hilton in Orlando after several years outside the city. The conference will kick off Wednesday evening with the opening reception, hosted by COA President Miriam Atkins, MD, FACP, who is a physician owner and partner of the AO Multispecialty Clinic, August, Georgia.

Sessions start early both Thursday and Friday with greetings from 6 co-chairs: Moshe Chasky, MD, FACP, of Alliance Cancer Specialists; Stephen “Fred” Divers, MD, of Genesis Cancer & Blood Institute and chief medical officer, American Oncology Network; Kathy Oubre, MS, CEO of Pontchartrain Cancer Center; Alti Rahman, MHA/MBA, CSSBB, chief strategy and innovation officer, American Oncology Network; Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, chief medical officer, Tennessee Oncology; and Emily Touloukian, DO, of Coastal Cancer Center.

Both days offer a mix of policy-oriented sessions as well as midday breakout sessions that focus on business, clinical, and pharmacy topics. More so than most conferences, COA’s spring meeting offers advice for practice survival, with Thursday’s policy sessions covering how independent practices can manage their relationship with the local hospital and how to execute value-based care agreements in an accurate and ethical manner. Friday’s business track sessions, meanwhile, cover navigating multiple formularies and revenue cycle management.

Thursday’s highlights include the keynote address, “How to Be a Champion Every Day,” from Super Bowl-winning quarterback Joe Theisman.

Across Thursday and Friday, sessions will help attendees understand and learn to advocate for policy changes that affect their practices. In recent years, COA has succeeded in highlighting questionable practices by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) as well as the ill effects of giant mergers that put PBMs and health insurers under one room; however, PBM reforms continue to stall in Congress. Most recently, efforts to attach a reform package to the $1.2 trillion spending package that passed the Congress in late March fell short.

Meanwhile, a successful push to eliminate direct-and-indirect remuneration (DIR) fees resulted in slashed pharmacy reimbursements for several oncology drugs starting in January, which is the topic of a session Friday morning. A separate session on PBM legal challenges will be part of the pharmacy track later on Friday. Thursday’s final session, moderated by Touloukian, will be: “Stronger Together: The Power of Advocacy to Support Patients and Practices,” featuring advice for those want to get involved in petitioning their state lawmakers or submitting an op-ed about an issue.

The annual legislative update, “The Politics of Oncology: Legislative Updates & Predictions From Capitol Hill,” is always lively in a presidential year. Moderated by COA executive director Ted Okon, MBA, the Friday morning panel will feature Christian G. Downs, JD, MHA, executive director, Association of Cancer Care Centers; Ben Jones, vice president, government relations and public policy, McKesson, The US Oncology Network; Jerrica Mathis, VP, federal government relations and public policy, Cardinal Health; Shelly Mui-Lipnik, JD, LLM, head of federal government relations, Cencora; and Kristine Rufener, director, Congressional Affairs, American Society for Clinical Oncology.