Does reimbursement influence chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients?
Before the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003, Medicare reimbursed physicians for chemotherapy drugs at rates that greatly exceeded physicians' costs for those drugs. We examined the effect of physician reimbursement on chemotherapy treatment of Medicare beneficiaries older than age sixty-five with metastatic lung, breast, colorectal, or other gastrointestinal cancers between 1995 and 1998 (9,357 patients). A physician's decision to administer chemotherapy to metastatic cancer patients was not measurably affected by higher reimbursement. Providers who were more generously reimbursed, however, prescribed more-costly chemotherapy regimens to metastatic breast, colorectal, and lung cancer patients.
Jacobson
Mireille
M
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. mgjacobs@umich.edu
O'Malley
A James
AJ
Earle
Craig C
CC
Pakes
Juliana
J
Gaccione
Peter
P
Newhouse
Joseph P
JP
D000368:Aged; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000191:economics* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics; D008297:Male; D008495:Medical Oncology / Q000191:economics*; D016345:Medicare Part B / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000188:drug therapy; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012051:Reimbursement Mechanisms; D018426:SEER Program; D014481:United States
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents