Cost differential by site of service for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

Objectives: To compare the costs of: 1) chemotherapy treatment across clinical, demographic, and geographic variables; and 2) various cancer care-related cost categories between patients receiving chemotherapy in a community oncology versus a hospital outpatient setting.

Study Design: Data from the calendar years 2008 to 2010 from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database were analyzed. During 2010, the data set contained approximately 45 million unique commercially insured patients with 70,984 cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.