Investigators at University of Pennsylvania Detail Findings in Oncology (Relation Between Narrow Networks and Providers of Cancer Care)

Insurance Weekly News

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Researchers detail new data in Oncology. According to news reporting out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by VerticalNews editors, research stated, "Health insurers offer plans covering a narrow subset of providers in an attempt to lower premiums and compete for consumers. However, narrow networks may limit access to high-quality providers, particularly those caring for patients with cancer."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Pennsylvania, "We examined provider networks offered on the 2014 individual health insurance exchanges, assessing oncologist supply and network participation in areas that do and do not contain one of 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Centers. We characterized a network's inclusion of oncologists affiliated with NCI-Designated Cancer Centers relative to oncologists excluded from the network within the same region and assessed the relationship between this relative inclusion and each network's breadth. We repeated these analyses among networks offered in the same regions as the subset of 27 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers identified as National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Cancer Centers. In regions containing NCI-Designated Cancer Centers, there were 13.7 oncologists per 100,000 residents and 4.9 (standard deviation [SD], 2.8) networks covering a mean of 39.4% (SD, 26.2%) of those oncologists, compared with 8.8 oncologists per 100,000 residents and 3.2 (SD, 2.1) networks covering on average 49.9% (SD, 26.8%) of the area's oncologists (P < .001 for all comparisons). There was a strongly significant correlation (r = 0.4; P< .001) between a network's breadth and its relative inclusion of oncologists associated with NCI-Designated Cancer Centers; this relationship held when considering only affiliation with NCCN Cancer Centers. Narrower provider networks are more likely to exclude oncologists affiliated with NCI-Designated or NCCN Cancer Centers."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Health insurers, state regulators, and federal lawmakers should offer ways for consumers to learn whether providers of cancer care with particular affiliations are in or out of narrow provider networks."

For more information on this research see: Relation Between Narrow Networks and Providers of Cancer Care. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2017;35(27):3131-3135,67. Journal of Clinical Oncology can be contacted at: Amer Soc Clinical Oncology, 2318 Mill Road, Ste 800, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting L. Yasaitis, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States. Additional authors for this research include J.E. Bekelman and D. Polsky.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2017.73.2040. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America, Oncology, Cancer, University of Pennsylvania.