Lani Alison: How Providers Discuss the OCM With Patients

Lani M. Alison, BSN, MS, HCQ, PCMH, CCE, vice president of Clinical Affairs, Regional Cancer Care Associates, discusses how providers discuss the Oncology Care Model (OCM) with patients and the questions they ask about it.

Transcript

How do providers discuss the concept of the OCM with patients, and what questions do patients ask about it?

One of the requirements of the OCM, or Oncology Care Model, is to make sure the patients receive what they call the beneficiary letters. The beneficiary letter is actually a letter to the patient who has qualified to be eligible for the Oncology Care Model patient care. When the patients actually receive this—either in the mail, or most of our practices actually give it during their visit and they say you’re now a member of this—they always ask, “What is this?” and “Am I going to pay extra for this?” And then now they understand they’re actually getting more and that this is a benefit from Medicare and they are like, “Medicare is giving me more? How much is this going to cost in my premiums?” No ma’am or sir, this isn’t going to cost you anything.

Those are really most of the questions that we get: whether the co-pay is going to go up, whether they’re going to get a raise in their premiums, and what are those benefits that they are not getting now that this particular service is going to offer them. Those are most of the questions we get about OCM.