When Brian Bourbeau talks about boosting value in cancer treatment, he describes the efforts that OHC (Oncology Hematology Care), based in Cincinnati, has made to protect patients from spiraling into a miserable and, from the practice’s standpoint, costly crisis.

Over the past several years, OHC has established a nurse navigator triage unit staffed with dedicated nurses, some of whom work partial weekend shifts, who answer calls from patients worried about symptoms or treatment side effects. The facility also expanded its weekend office hours so patients can be checked if their symptoms or conditions deteriorate. “We want to prevent the patient from being in that situation where they don’t have access to their provider over the weekend and then they visit the emergency room as their only option,” Mr. Bourbeau told Clinical Oncology News.

Mr. Bourbeau is not a physician or nurse, but the 50-physician practice’s director of organizational effectiveness and payor relations. In that capacity, he’s been helping to fast track their shift to value-based reimbursement, a process that started in 2012. Back then, just 6% of the practice’s revenues were tied to quality benchmarks or some type of shared savings component, versus 63% in early 2016, he noted.

OHC is one of 10 practices that have been accredited as an oncology medical home by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Commission on Cancer. Such efforts are part of an oncologic sea change in cancer care delivery—one that involves most key stakeholders, including clinicians, data analysts, business managers and payors. In OHC’s case, the new payment model was forged in a partnership with private payors such as Aetna and UnitedHealthcare. But federal agencies recently have gotten into the act as well: In early 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its Oncology Care Model to evaluate financial and performance accountability for episodes of care that involve chemotherapy administration.

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