Pillar #5: Access to Quality Treatment & Clinical Trials

Key Messages:

5a. Provide education and promotion of cancer clinical trials.

• This requirement is about raising awareness about cancer clinical trials, using approaches and/or media that work best within your organization (e.g. web, newsletters, brochures, seminars, videos etc.).
• An organization should educate employees about cancer clinical trials and the value of considering participating in a cancer clinical trial, and how to navigate the trials that are available.
• The decision to participate in a clinical trial – or decline participation – ultimately resides with the individual and his or her oncologist.
• Education should be a sustained effort, so that employees are aware of the value of participation in a clinical trial pre-diagnosis, and will, therefore, be equipped to make an informed decision should a cancer diagnosis become a reality.
• If possible, education should include cancer caregivers, too.

5b. Offer health benefit plans that eliminate cost as a barrier to accessing cancer clinical trials.

• Note that sponsors of clinical trials typically pay for investigational drugs and agents, and the Gold Standard does not require your health benefits plans to pay for expenses otherwise covered by a trial sponsor.
• Within the health benefit plans, an organization must remove cost as a barrier to participating in a cancer clinical trial – note that this does not mean “at no cost”.
  An organization must demonstrate that cost is not a valid reason for an employee to not participate in a cancer clinical trial.
• Again, as with other requirements that involve health benefit plans, all enrolled employees and covered dependents must be included, and all plans (fully insured as well as self-insured) must pass the “cost is not a barrier” test.
• Health benefit plans may not exclude regular care just because an individual is participating in a clinical trial.
• Covering non-medical costs such as airfare is not a requirement of the CEO Cancer Gold Standard™.
  

5c. Ensure that health benefit plans provide access to cancer care at Commission on Cancer-approved facilities and/or NCI-approved cancer centers.

• This requirement is not about clinical trials – it simply addresses providing access to quality cancer treatment in a general sense.
• An employee or covered dependent is not required to receive care at Commission on Cancer-approved facilities and/or cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) but your plan must allow access to them should the employee wish to be treated there.
• To ensure the availability of quality care, access is required for at least some approved centers within a reasonable geographic vicinity of where employees live.
• An organization must provide access to cancer treatment at Commission on Cancer-approved facilities and/or NCI-approved cancer centers.
• The Commission on Cancer (CoC), www.facs.org/cancer/publicabout.html, established by the American College of Surgeons, is a consortium of professional organizations dedicated to improving survival and quality of life for cancer patients through standard-setting, prevention, research, education, and the monitoring of comprehensive quality care.
• The Commission on Cancer (CoC) Approvals Program www.facs.org/cancer/coc/whatis.html encourages hospitals, treatment centers, and other facilities to improve their quality of patient care through various cancer-related programs. These programs are concerned with prevention, early diagnosis, pretreatment evaluation, staging, optimal treatment, rehabilitation, surveillance for recurrent disease, support services, and end-of-life care.  Over 1400 cancer programs in the U.S. are accredited/approved by the CoC. www.web.facs.org/cpm/CPMApprovedHospitals_Result.cfm
• The National Cancer Institute(NCI) www.cancer.gov, a component of the National Institutes of Health, coordinates the National Cancer Program, which conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.
• NCI-designated cancer centers  www.cancercenters.cancer.gov/cancer_centers/index.html are characterized by scientific excellence and the capability to integrate a diversity of research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer. They play a vital role in advancing towards our goal of reducing morbidity and mortality from cancer.