Dive Brief:
- UnitedHealthcare has announced a major expansion of its study on whether a bundled payment model can successfully reduce the cost of cancer treatment.
- Findings from the first phase of the pilot, which were released last year, indicated overall costs for cancer care went down 34% even though costs for chemotherapy drugs had gone up.
- With the reasons for the success of the pilot being somewhat unclear, UnitedHealthcare plans to bring an additional 500 oncologists into the study, so it will total 650 oncologists across seven states.
Dive Insight:
While the study results are extremely promising so far, it remains to be seen whether they can be replicated, and whether the bundled payment approach has any effect on quality measures.
Similar efforts by three other entities resulted in far more modest savings than that experienced at UnitedHealthcare, Lindsay Conway, a managing director at the Advisory Board Company, told Kaiser Health News. “The big question is whether United’s results are replicable,” she said. “They’re working on that right now.”
It is known reduced hospitalizations and use of radiation services contributed to the savings, but it's hoped the next round of study will result in a clearer picture, according to Lee Newcomer, UnitedHealthcare's senior vice president for oncology, genetics and women’s health.
Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group Inc. is reported to be working on a deal to purchase Helios, a workers' comp and pharmacy benefits company. If that goes through, the deal would significantly grow UnitedHealth's benefits business, which already saw the purchase earlier this year of Catamaran Corp.