Denying Access to Big Cancer Centers May Undermine Narrow Networks

Patient access to some of the nation's best-known cancer-care centers could become a flashpoint in the simmering controversy surrounding the narrow networks being constructed by some insurers and healthcare providers.

In their efforts to hold down premiums on the new insurance exchanges, many plans have excluded some or all of the nation's most prestigious cancer centers from their provider networks. An Associated Press survey last month of 19 of the 25 institutions affiliated with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which writes clinical practice guidelines and whose members conduct cutting-edge research, identified at least 13 centers facing exclusion from a “significant” number of plans.

Only four reported that every insurer included them as a network provider. Even that group reported they were sometimes excluded from low-cost plans.

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Source: Modern Healthcare