See Me, Hear Me: Racial Discrimination Among Women Seeking Breast Cancer Care.

Discrimination can contribute to worse health outcomes, but its prevalence in breast cancer is not well studied. We aimed to understand how women with stage I-III breast cancer faced discrimination in health care and everyday settings through a cross-sectional survey. 296 women, 178 (60%) Non-Hispanic White (NHW), 76 (26%) Non-Hispanic Black (NHB), and 42 (14%) Hispanic participated.

Estimating oncologist variability in prescribing systemic cancer therapies to patients in the last 30 days of life.

Introduction: Clinical guidelines and quality improvement initiatives have identified reducing the use of end-of-life cancer therapies as an opportunity to improve care. We examined the extent to which oncologists differed in prescribing systemic therapies in the last 30 days of life.

Methods: Using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data, we identified patients who died of cancer from 2012 to 2017 (N = 17,609), their treating oncologists (N = 960), and the corresponding physician practice (N = 388).

Maryland's Global Budget Revenue Payment Model and Shifts in the Surgical Site of Care Among Medicare Beneficiaries.

Objective: To assess the association between the Global Budget Revenue (GBR) payment model and shifts to the outpatient setting for surgical procedures among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in Maryland versus control states.

Summary Background Data: The GBR model provides fixed global payments to hospitals to reduce spending growth and incentivize hospitals to reduce the costs of care while improving care quality. Since surgical care is a major contributor to hospital spending, the GBR model might accelerate the ongoing shift from the inpatient to the outpatient setting to generate additional savings.

Trends in Integration Between Physician Organizations and Pharmacies for Self-Administered Drugs.

Importance: Increasing integration across medical services may have important implications for health care quality and spending. One major but poorly understood dimension of integration is between physician organizations and pharmacies for self-administered drugs or in-house pharmacies.

Objective: To describe trends in the use of in-house pharmacies, associated physician organization characteristics, and associated drug prices.

Designing a Digital Tool to Inform Oncology Practices About Cancer Treatment Cost Burdens.

Paper describes our development of a web-based tool to make Medicare patient prices for cancer drugs known to their care teams.

Prior Authorization and Association With Delayed or Discontinued Prescription Fills.

Purpose: Prior authorization requirements are increasing but little is known about their effects on access to care. We examined the association of a new prior authorization policy with delayed or discontinued prescription fills for oral anticancer drugs among Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

Methods: Using Medicare part D claims data from 2010 to 2020, we studied beneficiaries regularly filling one of 11 oral anticancer drugs, defined as three 30-day fills in 120 days preceding the plan's prior authorization policy change on that drug and continuously enrolled in the same plan for 120 days before and after the policy change at the start of a new year.

Open-Source, Step-Counting Algorithm for Smartphone Data Collected in Clinical and Nonclinical Settings: Algorithm Development and Validation Study.

Background: Step counts are increasingly used in public health and clinical research to assess well-being, lifestyle, and health status. However, estimating step counts using commercial activity trackers has several limitations, including a lack of reproducibility, generalizability, and scalability. Smartphones are a potentially promising alternative, but their step-counting algorithms require robust validation that accounts for temporal sensor body location, individual gait characteristics, and heterogeneous health states.

Opportunities for Savings in Risk Arrangements for Oncologic Care.

Importance: As the US accelerates adoption of alternative payment through global payment models such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) or Medicare Advantage (MA), high spending for cancer care is a potential target for savings.

Objective: To quantify the extent to which ACOs and other risk-bearing organizations operating in a specific geographic area (hospital referral region [HRR]) could achieve savings by steering patients to efficient medical oncology practices.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This observational study included serial cross-sections of Medicare beneficiaries with cancer from 2010 to 2018.

Implementation research: including breast examinations in a cervical cancer screening programme, Rwanda.

Objective: To evaluate whether integrating breast and cervical cancer screening in Rwanda's Women's Cancer Early Detection Program led to early breast cancer diagnoses in asymptomatic women.

Methods: Launched in three districts in 2018-2019, the early detection programme offered clinical breast examination screening for all women receiving cervical cancer screening, and diagnostic breast examination for women with breast cancer symptoms. Women with abnormal breast examinations were referred to district hospitals and then to referral hospitals if needed.

Organization of Cancer Specialists in US Physician Practices and Health Systems.

Purpose: To describe the supply of cancer specialists, the organization of cancer care within versus outside of health systems, and the distance to multispecialty cancer centers.

Methods: Using the 2018 Health Systems and Provider Database from the National Bureau of Economic Research and 2018 Medicare data, we identified 46,341 unique physicians providing cancer care. We stratified physicians by discipline (adult/pediatric medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgical/gynecologic oncologists, other surgeons performing cancer surgeries, or palliative care physicians), system type (National Cancer Institute [NCI] Cancer Center system, non-NCI academic system, nonacademic system, or nonsystem/independent practice), practice size, and composition (single disciplinary oncology, multidisciplinary oncology, or multispecialty).

Cost-Related Medication Nonadherence and Desire for Medication Cost Information Among Adults Aged 65 Years and Older in the US in 2022.

Importance: Rising prescription drug costs and increasing prices for consumer goods may increase cost-related medication nonadherence. Cost-conscious prescribing can be supported by real-time benefit tools, but patient views on real-time benefit tool use and their potential benefits and harms are largely unexplored.

Objective: To assess older adults' cost-related medication nonadherence, cost-coping strategies, and views on the use of real-time benefit tools in clinical practice.

Breast cancer treatment receipt and the role of financial stress, health literacy, and numeracy among diverse breast cancer survivors.

Purpose: Disparities in breast cancer treatment for low-income and minority women are well documented. We examined economic hardship, health literacy, and numeracy and whether these factors were associated with differences in receipt of recommended treatment among breast cancer survivors.

Methods: During 2018-2020, we surveyed adult women diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer between 2013 and 2017 and received care at three centers in Boston and New York.

Practice-Level Variation in Molecular Testing and Use of Targeted Therapy for Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Colorectal Cancer.

Importance: All patients with newly diagnosed non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) should receive molecular testing to identify those who can benefit from targeted therapies. However, many patients do not receive recommended testing and targeted therapies.

Objective: To compare rates of molecular testing and targeted therapy use by practice type and across practices.

Validation of an open-source smartphone step counting algorithm in clinical and non-clinical settings.

Background: Step counts are increasingly used in public health and clinical research to assess wellbeing, lifestyle, and health status. However, estimating step counts using commercial activity trackers has several limitations, including a lack of reproducibility, generalizability, and scalability. Smartphones are a potentially promising alternative, but their step-counting algorithms require robust validation that accounts for temporal sensor body location, individual gait characteristics, and heterogeneous health states.