Health Plan Alliance (HAP) along with Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions and oncology consulting firm Physician Resource Management have announced they will work together to launch in Michigan an evidence-based clinical pathways program that is intended to improve the quality and lower the costs of cancer treatment.
The program, which will focus on breast cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer, will see Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions work in partnership with a steering committee of oncologists who contract with the non-profit health insurer HAP to identify evidence-based treatment regimens for the three different cancers.
According to information released by Cardinal, the program is an important step in helping health plans and oncologists develop effective and cost-efficient programs to treat cancer, whose incidence rate is projected to increase by 45 percent between now and 2030.
"Physician-driven clinical pathways programs like this one can play an integral role in defining a more sustainable model for caring for patients with cancer, by increasing the quality, consistency and predictability of the care they receive," said Bruce Feinberg, MD, vice president and chief medical officer, oncology, Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions, in a press release.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions will provide the technology, education, training and other tools used by the doctors in the HAP network to implement and monitor to treatment pathways. In all, the program will help support more than 200 medical oncologists in the HAP provider network to both continually update the clinical pathways and provide support so they will consistently implement these treatment regimens. HAP provides health coverage to more than 640,000 members in Michigan.
"This new initiative uses medical evidence to make it easier and more convenient than ever for physicians to identify the safest and most efficacious, tolerable treatment regimens for our HAP members who are undergoing cancer treatment," said John Calabria, MD, HAP's medical director, in a prepared statement. "The Clinical Pathways program enables oncologists to develop their own clinical pathways with no prior authorization requirements, and we're enriching the fee schedule to provide enhanced reimbursement for physicians who participate."
Phillip Stella, MD, president of Physician Resource Management, an organization representing more than 70 separate oncology practices in Michigan, who will serve on the physician steering committee noted in a press release: "We're looking forward to participating in this new program because we believe it will enable us to effectively advance an innovative, new care delivery model into new markets and provide quality care to a broader group of patients."