Cancer Care Close to Home Benefits Patients in Many Ways

A recent study by researchers from the University of Alabama Birmingham found measurable differences for patients when cancer treatment is delivered close to home. Gabrielle B. Rocque, MD, and her colleagues found that travel time is a drag on cancer care. Medpage Today reported on the study of 23,000 Medicare cancer patients.

The study revealed that Medicare patients with cancer had higher costs, higher cost-sharing, and higher hospitalization rates if they had to travel more than an hour to receive care. When compared to patients that traveled less than 30 mins to receive cancer treatment, patients that traveled more than an hour for care had copays and cost-sharing that was 10% higher. Average monthly Medicare spending for gastrointestinal cancer and certain urological cancer care was about $1,000 more. Longer travel distance was associated with 14% higher hospitalization rates in some cases.

Why is this study important? It reinforces the importance of access to community-based cancer treatment to patients. Medicare is considering experimental payment methods for complex medical conditions that are disruptive to care and pose excessive risk and unpredictability to community-based practices. This could result in providers closing their doors, pushing patients out of the community setting and into less convenient, more costly settings of care. “As community access to cancer healthcare services decreases, healthcare spending could increase, and patients who are forced to travel may experience higher costs,” the authors of the study said.

Medicare should not force untested, new payment models for the care of America’s most vulnerable seniors. Patients and their family caregivers should focus on healing and quality of life not face long travel times and higher out-of-pocket costs.