Episode 17: Treating Oncology’s “Perverse Incentive”— How to bend the cost curve in cancer treatment with Dr. Andrew Norden of OncoHealth
Oncology is full of staggering statistics—1.9 million cancer diagnoses and 680,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone—but some of the most alarming involve the financial impact of care: Cancer patients are over 2.5x more likely to declare bankruptcy than their demographic peers. Dr. Andrew Norden, chief medical officer at OncoHealth, joins Justin to discuss how we can reduce the physical, mental, and financial toll of cancer. Justin and Andrew discuss oncology’s “built-in perverse incentive” that drives some doctors to prescribe top-dollar drugs and lays out some options for bending the cost curve, including value-based payment models, stringent utilization management, and greater compensation for oncologists’ routine services.
Andrew and Justin also dig into the obstacles facing oncologists and their patients, including the often-unaddressed relationship between cancer and clinical depression, and why despite all the challenges in cancer treatment, Andrew is optimistic about his field in the long run.
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