Researchers from Harvard Medical School Detail Findings in Cancer (The Complex Cancer Care Coverage Environment – What Is the Role of Legislation? a Case Study From Massachusetts)

2020 OCT 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Data detailed on Cancer have been presented. According to news originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Over the past decades, anti-cancer treatments have evolved rapidly from cytotoxic chemotherapies to targeted therapies including oral targeted medications and injectable immuno-oncology and cell therapies. New anti-cancer medications come to markets at increasingly high prices, and health insurance coverage is crucial for patient access to these therapies.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Harvard Medical School, “State laws are intended to facilitate insurance coverage of anti-cancer therapies. Using Massachusetts as a case study, we identified five current cancer coverage state laws and interviewed experts on their perceptions of the relevance of the laws and how well they meet the current needs of cancer care given rapid changes in therapies. Interviewees emphasized that cancer therapies, as compared to many other therapeutic areas, are unique because insurance legislation targets their coverage. They identified the oral chemotherapy parity law as contributing to increasing treatment costs in commercial insurance. For commercial insurers, coverage mandates combined with the realities of new cancer medications - including high prices and often limited evidence of efficacy at approval - compound a difficult situation. Respondents recommended policy approaches to address this challenging coverage environment, including the implementation of closed formularies, the use of cost-effectiveness studies to guide coverage decisions, and the application of value-based pricing concepts.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Given the evolution of cancer therapeutics, it may be time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of cancer coverage mandates.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: The Complex Cancer Care Coverage Environment - What Is the Role of Legislation? a Case Study From Massachusetts. The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics, 2020;48(3):538-551. The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics can be contacted at: Sage Publications Inc, 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Christine Leopold, Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Population Medicine, Boston, MA 02115, United States. Additional authors for this research include Christine Y. Lu, Anita K. Wagner and Rebecca L. Haffajee.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110520958879. 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.

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