Coordinating Cancer Care a Challenge for Patients and Families
According to a poll conducted by USA TODAY, Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health, half of cancer patients and their households have trouble coordinating medical care for their disease. The poll, reported in an article appearing in the USA TODAY on November 20, 2006, surveyed 930 adults who had survived cancer in the preceding five years or who share a household with someone diagnosed with cancer.
According to the USA TODAY article, coordinating care is one of the biggest challenges for cancer patients. Unlike past decades, when patients spent months in the hospital while receiving chemotherapy and other treatments, patients today often receive treatment or attend doctors’ appointments for only a few hours at a time. Cancer care is also more complex than in years past, with patients seeing a variety of doctors who each handle only one facet of patients’ care, often in different offices.
In such cases, unless one doctor takes responsibility for coordinating care, a patient’s medical records may be scattered among various doctors’ offices and treatment may be piecemeal. The problem is compounded by the fact that insurance plans do not typically pay doctors to coordinate care. Patients who attend comprehensive cancer centers may receive better coordination of their care, but only about 10% of cancer patients are treated at this type of large cancer center. Ellen Stovall, president and chief executive officer of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, advocates for improved information for cancer patients. For example, she supports the Comprehensive Cancer Care Improvement Act, which would allow Medicare to pay doctors for coordinating care.
According to Stovall, every cancer patient deserves three key documents: A care plan, developed soon after diagnosis, outlining the patient’s treatment plan;A treatment summary provided to the patient after the conclusion of their therapy, summarizing their surgeries, radiation and drugs, including dosages; A plan for ongoing care, providing guidance for how survivors should monitor their health, including information about screening tests, follow-up exams, and possible long-term side effects of the treatment they received.
