Legislation & Public Policy
Overview
Cancer is a medical, political, social, psychological, and economic issue that needs strong advocates like you. Every day, legislators and regulators make decisions that impact the lives of more than 14.5 million cancer survivors, their families, and all potential cancer patients. It’s important to make sure your voice is heard. You have a unique perspective as a cancer patient, a survivor, a caregiver, or a friend or family member that needs to be heard.
How can you help protect high-quality cancer care in your community?
Decisions made in Washington, D.C., and Austin affect your cancer treatment. Cancer is a complex and expensive disease to treat. Texas Oncology supports legislation and policy that would save cancer patients money while eliminating barriers to high-quality, community-based cancer care. Visit the sites below to learn how you can become involved and make a difference in ensuring quality cancer care for patients.
The US Oncology Network LegisLink
Texas Oncology works with The US Oncology Network to advocate for cancer care among U.S. lawmakers. Advocacy efforts at the national, state, and local levels help protect the interests of our patients and physicians. Your help is needed to promote public understanding of community-based oncology care.
Visit the LegisLink Action Center to learn more and find out how you can be involved. The LegisLink Action Center is the main vehicle for cancer-care advocacy. Through LegisLink, you can:
- Learn about legislative issues affecting cancer care in various state and federal governments.
- Search for lawmakers in your area and find complete contact information.
- Find resources for setting up cancer center site visits.
- View our Principles for Reform.
- Join our Good Government Committee.
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)
The Cancer Action Network (CAN) is the non-partisan advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society. The mission of ACS is to elevate cancer issues to a national level and involve patients, survivors, and friends in their advocacy efforts.
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the leading professional organization representing physicians who treat people with cancer, advocates for legislation and regulations that increase access to high-quality cancer care.
National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship (NCCS)
The National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) advocates for quality cancer care. The NCCS works with elected officials for all people touched by cancer. Representing cancer patients and survivors, NCCS works with legislators and policymakers in efforts to improve quality of care and quality of life.
Safe Drug Delivery
Some insurers and pharmacy benefit managers have created policies that require you to obtain infusion or injectable drugs from a source other than your cancer center, or face having to pay a higher out-of-pocket amount. This can include:
- Brown Bagging: Patients obtain drugs directly from a vendor/pharmacy and bring them to the clinic to be administered by clinical staff.
- White Bagging: Insurers or pharmacy benefit managers purchase drugs directly from a specialty pharmacy and ship them to the clinic.
- Drug Replacement: Vendor replaces drugs in physician's inventory.
Policies like these are unsafe disruptions of Texas Oncology’s proven protocols for handling cancer drugs, which includes meticulously tracking them from the manufacturer until they are given to patients. This process helps reduce risks, including tampering, dilution, mishandling, and exposure to temperature changes that can render the drug ineffective.
These policies also compromise the practice’s ability to deliver the personalized care patients expect. Nearly one-third of all chemotherapy dosages change on the day of treatment, based on lab results and other clinical considerations. The new requirement interferes with physicians’ dynamic decision-making process and could delay needed treatments.
Also with dosage amounts subject to change, cancer drugs delivered from outside the practice could be wasted. For safety reasons, they can’t simply be restocked as if on shelves at a grocery store and are never allowed to be returned. Replacement medications could then become an additional financial burden for patients.
The decision about how cancer medicines are administered should be made by physicians and nurses – not by insurance plans, pharmacies, or their vendors.
Cancer treatment therapies should never be “self-serve.”
Texas Oncology adopted the following policy to protect you:
Texas Oncology opposes any policy that requires you to acquire injectable drugs outside of our practice and bring those drugs into our cancer centers for administration. Such actions pose significant risks to you and liability to physicians with respect to the product integrity, product labeling, and accuracy, and the conditions to which those drugs may be exposed which cannot be known by Texas Oncology’s physicians.