Ferreyros on Biomarker Access and Physician Autonomy in Community Oncology
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Nicolas Ferreyros discusses the Community Oncology Alliance’s position statements on biomarker testing and physician autonomy.
The Community Oncology Alliance has stated that biomarker testing is an essential tool for modern cancer treatment, ensuring patients receive the right care at the right time, minimizing unnecessary costs and adverse events. According to Community Oncology Alliance’s Nicolas Ferreyros, broad and equitable access to biomarker testing, with reduced barriers, is crucial so that patients can receive the precise treatments they require.
“Biomarker testing is an essential and groundbreaking tool in modern cancer treatment. It ensures that patients receive the right care at the right time in the right place, and has the potential to reduce sort of unnecessary spending and side effects and toxicity from treatments that aren't necessarily working or that aren't the best for that patient,” Ferreyros, managing director of policy, advocacy, and communications, Community Oncology Alliance, says.
In addition, the Community Oncology Alliance is actively working to restore physician autonomy, which has been diminished by middlemen, insurers, and pharmacy benefit managers who do not directly treat patients. In the interview, Ferreyros highlights restrictive coverage, step therapy, and bureaucratic hurdles that undermine physicians' clinical judgment.
“Over the last couple of decades, physician autonomy has been slowly eroded by interference from middlemen, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers that don't actually treat the patients….We want to get back to an era where we are protecting and letting doctors be doctors, using their clinical judgment and ensuring that their patients can receive the right treatment at the right time when they need it, without interference from those who are not in that exam room, who do not know their patients and are not treating them,” adds Ferreyros.
Prioritizing both biomarker access and physician autonomy is central to the Community Oncology Alliance’s mission of ensuring optimal cancer care within community oncology settings.
