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Closing the door on cancer care Some worry that Medicare reform could change the way patients get chemotherapy - and not for the better.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Lorilyn Rackl Daily Herald Health Editor

Virginia Reinhold sits in a reclining chair at her oncologist's Arlington Heights office, watching "The Price Is Right" while a chemotherapy cocktail funnels into her 68-year-old body.

Some 700 miles away on Capitol Hill, legislators are moving ahead with a Medicare reform package that includes a highly publicized prescription drug benefit for seniors - and some lesser- known details that could change the way Reinhold and other cancer patients get their care.

The bills passed late last month by the House and Senate revamp the way Medicare reimburses physicians for giving chemotherapy. The legislation essentially would put the brakes on a long-standing practice that allows oncologists to overcharge the government for chemotherapy drugs. Doctors have been using that "profit" to help cover the cost of administering the complex drugs - a service they say is grossly underfunded by Medicare.

Players on both sides have complained for years that the system needs fixing. But Congress' answer to the problem will only compromise cancer care, oncologists and patient advocacy groups say. They warn that both the House and the Senate bills pose a similar threat: deep cuts in cancer funding. And if the bills become law, a lot more than doctors' paychecks are going to suffer. They say patients could see delays in treatment, fewer services and less access to care.

"Within that Medicare reform bill there is a catastrophe waiting to happen for cancer care in America," said Dr. Steven Leibach, a physician with Northwest Oncology & Hematology, which has four offices throughout the suburbs.

About 80 percent of cancer patients get their chemotherapy in private oncologists' offices like Leibach's. He and others say it would simply be too costly for them to keep providing chemo if the proposed cuts...

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