Physician attitudes about cost consciousness for breast cancer treatment: differences by cancer sub-specialty

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Breast Cancer Res Treat
• Personal Author:
  Resnicow, Ken ; Patel, Minal R. ; Mcleod, M. Chandler ; Katz, Steven J. ; Jagsi, Reshma
• Description:
  Purpose:
  
  High costs of cancer care place considerable burden on patients and society. Despite increasing recognition that providers should play a role in reducing care costs, how physicians across cancer specialties differ in their cost—consciousness has not been reported. We examined cost—consciousness regarding breast cancer care among medical oncologists, surgeons, and radiation oncologists.
  
  Methods:
  
  We identified 514 cancer surgeons, 504 medical oncologists, and 251 radiation oncologists by patient report through the iCanCare study. iCanCare identified newly diagnosed women with breast cancer through the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries of Georgia and Los Angeles. We queried providers on three dimensions of cost—consciousness: (1) perceived importance of cost saving for society, patients, practice, and payers; (2) awareness of patient out-of-pocket expenses; and (3) discussion of financial burden.
  
  Results:
  
  We received responses from 376 surgeons (73%), 304 medical oncologists (60%), and 169 radiation oncologists (67%). Overall levels of cost—consciousness were moderate, with scores ranging from 2.5 to 3.0 out of 5. After adjusting for covariates, surgeons had the lowest scores on all three cost—consciousness measures; medical oncologists had the highest scores. Pairwise contrasts showed surgeons had significantly lower scores than medical oncologists for all three measures and significantly lower scores than radiation oncologists for two of the three cost—consciousness variables: importance of cost saving and discussion of financial burden.
  
  Conclusions:
  
  How cost—consciousness impacts medical decision-making across specialty and how policy, structural, and behavioral interventions might sensitize providers regarding cost-related matters merit further examination.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Aged Article Breast Neoplasms Cancer Care Costs Cost—consciousness Decision Making Female Financial Toxicity Georgia Health Care Costs Health Expenditures Humans Male Medical Oncologists Middle Aged Oncologists Practice Patterns, Physicians' Radiation Oncologists Surgeons Surveys And Questionnaires

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• Source:
  Breast Cancer Res Treat. 173(1):31-36
• Pubmed ID:
  30259283
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8968296
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  HHSN261201000140C/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; P30 CA046592/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; 30CA46592/University of Michigan Cancer Center Biostatistics, Analytics and Bioinformatics/ ; HHSN261201000035I/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; HHSN261201300015C/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U58 DP003862/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; 5NU58DP003862-04/DP003862/CC/CDC HHSUnited States/ ; P01 CA163233/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U58 DP003875/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; PO1CA163233/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; HHSN261201000035C/PC/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; HHSN261201000034C/CA/NCI NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  173
• Issue:
  1
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5fe3e9bf97a30f7d15932e157a39e2acfe83d95a46542a22d7bbbc7835609939
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/115863/cdc_115863_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 69.04 KB ]