Regional Cancer Care Associates Formed

The escalating cost of cancer care delivery, which accounts for $104 billion in medical care expenditures1, has become a major concern to patients, caregivers, policymakers, and insurance companies. If left unchecked, this threatens to limit patient access to life-saving treatments.

A statewide group of 76 oncologists have consolidated their practices into a new oncology network they said will lower costs and pool resources for more than one-third of New Jersey’s cancer patients.

Officially launched on January 1, Regional Cancer Care Associates will provide the highest quality, compassionate clinical cancer care and access to all phases of clinical trials through its network of 76 cancer care specialists, supported by 500 employees at 20 care delivery sites located throughout New Jersey.

For patients, it means, greater access to clinical trials and access to a larger pool of doctors who will now be under the umbrella of a larger medical group said Andrew Pecora, the president of the new company, who is also chief innovations officer and professor and vice president of cancer services at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center.

But the main objective is cost control, said Pecora. “We have to do all the right things – but we have to do those right things at a responsible cost,” said Pecora. “We have spent the last 30 to 40 years learning how better to treat cancer patients – and now we can do it. When I think that in the future patients might not be able to afford it, it makes my skin crawl.”

Each doctor’s office will retain autonomy in terms of making specific medical decisions, but Regional Cancer Care Associates will standardize care by policymaking from a doctor-dominated board of trustees. For example, the board will decide how many diagnostic tests are ordered or whether certain chemotherapies are effective, said Pecora.

Oncologists who are not part of Regional Cancer Care Associates said the group may represent the wave of the future as economic pressures have made it more and more difficult for doctors to operate independently.

Additional information available