What is the Enhancing Oncology Model (EOM)?

The Oncology Care Model (OCM) is dead. The Oncology Care Model was a voluntary, alternative payment model (APM), that “included financial and performance accountability for episodes of care surrounding chemotherapy administration to cancer patients.” OCM expired at the end of June 2022, and will be replaced by the Enhancing Oncology Model. EOM is a also…

Did the Oncology Care Model produce cost savings?

The answer is ‘yes’, but the magnitude of these savings are relatively small and more than offset by additional OCM program costs. Keating et al. (2021) writes: In this exploratory difference-in-differences study of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with cancer undergoing chemotherapy (483 310 beneficiaries with 987 332 episodes treated at 201 OCM participating practices and 557 354 beneficiaries with…

Innovative Cancer Care models

What does CMS consider to be innovative oncology care?  The following three programs won a CMS Health Care Innovation Award for their initiative. Community Oncology Medical Home (COME HOME).  This model relied on three key principles: (i) triage pathways to help first responders and nurses identify and manage patient symptoms; (ii) enhanced access to care through…

Will OCM dis-incentivize innovation?

The answer seems to be yes according to a paper by Seiden, Neubauer and Verrilli (2017).  Although the Oncology Care Model (OCM) rewards practices both for improving quality and reducing cost, practices are not rewarded for dramatic increases in quality at marginal cost increases because financial returns are dependent on the creation of some cost savings. The…