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The new language of cancer care: contribution to working capital, human resource costs, practice efficiency, and opportunity costs
Baptist Centers for Cancer Care and Supportive Oncology Services, Inc., Memphis, TN
Decisions about treating cancer have traditionally been based largely on clinical factors such as efficacy, safety, and patient quality of life. To stay viable in the new reimbursement environment, community oncology clinics must also consider financial factors and learn a new language that includes contribution to working capital, human resource costs, practice efficiency, and opportunity costs. Clinics need to implement strategies that increase the efficiency of patient visits without compromising quality of care. To that end, comparable chemotherapy regimens should be evaluated on the basis of their contribution to working capital gained per unit of resource expenditure (eg, physician time, nurse time, or chair time), rather than by gross revenue alone. We describe a case study of the drugs and services used in a 7-day and a 21-day chemotherapy regimen in a patient with cancer. The model shows that using the shorter regimen would lower the working capital productivity rate and incur greater opportunity cost. This model should be refined to include the costs of providing supportive care.
| Commun Oncol 2005;2:357–362 | full text |  152 kb |