Dr Lucio Gordan Highlights Challenges Facing Oncologists in 2016

The biggest challenge facing oncologists in 2016 is the Medicare Part B demonstration that CMS announced, Lucio Gordan, MD, of Florida Cancer Specialists, said at the Community Oncology Alliance's 2016 Community Oncology Conference.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What are the biggest issues facing oncologists in the coming year?

There are several concerns in 2016 and going forward. I think the biggest, most pressing concern is the experiment that the federal government is trying to impose upon community oncology. I think this is a newly devised idea that will bring significant problems in terms of access to care. So I think this is our main battle.

The second challenge is for us physicians to be able to keep up with all the developments. There are so many new pharmaceutical components that are available for the care for patients. They're wonderful. There's a question of cost in how to get this to the patient. So there are evolving challenges and whenever we get one challenge fixed, 3 months later we have another one to fight. So it's always exciting.

What are your issues with the Medicare Part B demonstration?

I think the Part B experiment should be canceled—as simple as that. The way it was designed it didn't take into account any physicians' input, any real, practicing doctors. The community oncology doctors take care of 80 to 85% of patients with cancer in the United States and this wasn't well thought out and it's very arbitrary, it's an experiment, it was a one-sided decision. It just doesn't work. Essentially it will hurt patient care and access and this is the opposite of what we want to achieve. And I doubt it will save money for anybody.