Dr Stephen Schleicher: COA Unique at Bringing Thought Leaders Together

Ahead of the 2023 Community Oncology Conference, Stephen M. Schleicher, MD, MBA, chief medical officer at Tennessee Oncology and member of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) Board of Directors, discussed what brings him back to the meeting this year after year, how COA facilitates discussion on a wide variety of initiatives, and the collaborative nature of community oncology.

Transcript

What are you excited for at this year’s Community Oncology Conference, as an attendee and a co-chair?

I’m honored to be part of the COA board of directors. They have so much influential impact on policy efforts and helping practices learn how to navigate the ever-changing external forces that can sometimes get in the way of us taking care of patients. COA is a great organization to really bring practices together to address those. And the conference is a great example of that.

Very excited this year, again, to be around colleagues from all around the country, to really focus on topics—both clinical updates in care but all these policy initiatives around PBMs [pharmacy benefits managers, step edits, EOM [Enhancing Oncology Model] coming up. How do we, as a community oncology organization, really prepare, learn from each other to move forward in an innovative effort to really help our ability to take care of patients.

I’m not going to say it’s the best conference, there are so many good conferences, but I do think COA is one of the most unique conferences at bringing thought-leaders together around clinical updates, policy, and leadership. And it’s just a great time to learn from each other.