March 19, 2015 (Syracuse, NY) – The ever changing environment of new treatment options for cancer patients is rapidly moving to a mix of intravenous and oral therapies. The increase in oral treatment options has led to many challenges in the current model of obtaining and delivering quality patient care. The National Community Oncology Dispensing Association, Inc. (NCODA) has been hard at work, collaborating to develop new standard practices to bring together efficacious patient care and efficient patient management to maximize satisfaction for patients, providers, payers and all stakeholders.
NCODA is a grass roots, not-for-profit organization focused on driving the positive changes needed to better prepare community oncology practice to efficiently dispense oral oncolytic agents. In the last 12 months the founding members of NCODA have partnered together to build a framework of quality standards to best serve the needs of community practices to efficiently dispense oral cancer therapies and implement pharmacy driven interactions to positively affect the quality of patient care. “We believe the best model to eliminate clinical fragmentation and to promote comprehensive oncology care is one where all drug treatment modalities such as intravenous, subcutaneous, and oral, shall be provided at the site of care” says Michael Reff, RPh, MBA President and Founder of NCODA. With Quality Standards focused on being Patient-Centered, Positive Quality Interventions, Fundamental Practice Elements and Health Information Technology, NCODA brings together win-win solutions for all stakeholders involved in optimizing the treatment of cancer patients with oral therapies.
Since its beginning in early 2014, NCODA has collaborated with large regional payers to negotiate for patient care continuum beyond the first fill. NCODA was the first advocacy group to successfully navigate this type of collaboration on a local level and is in discussions with both large regional and national payers. “I was confident in joining NCODA because of their proven success in collaborating with payers and their common sense commitment to improving patient care” said Linda Frisk, PharmD, Arizona Oncology. NCODA continues to support its affiliated practices across the country to negotiate similar agreements. A Patient Satisfaction survey has been created and developed by NCODA in combination with The Community Benchmarks Program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School to quantify the metrics which patients, providers and payers are interested in.
NCODA’s rapidly growing membership is comprised of like-minded community cancer centers from across the country currently including over 25 practices and over 1,100 providers. “We believe that the best site of care for the treatment of all cancer patients is with their oncologist”, said Mr. Reff,“and our mission will create the environment that results in positive change for the cancer patient in the community setting.” NCODA will always be independent for its stakeholders, as it formulates a collaborative drug therapy management model which is so vitally important to the increasing demands for treatment with oral chemotherapy in community oncology practices.
