Please join me in congratulating Oncology Times' Associate Editor Catlin Nalley for successfully completing the prestigious National Cancer Reporting Fellowship offered by the Association of Health Care Journalists and the NCI. Catlin was one of only 14 journalists selected to participate in this 4-day event at the National Institute of Health's Bethesda, Md., campus.
As the objectives of the fellowship are to increase journalists' understanding of and ability to report accurately on complex scientific findings, provide insight into the work of cancer researchers, and better localize cancer-related stories, Catlin is poised to share her knowledge and expertise with you through her keen reporting skills and content presentation.
In fact, Catlin participated in in-depth discussions, hands-on exercises, and even laboratory tours that pertained to several critical and timely areas of oncology, including:
* Cancer Wars and Moonshots
* Immunotherapy
* Cancer Evidence by the Numbers
* How to Understand and Relay Cancer Statistics
* The World of Guidelines and Cancer Screening
* Social Determinants and Disparities
* How Clinical Trials Work
* Using SEER
* Genomics
* Story Building: Including Patients in the Equation
* Diet and Cancer Risk
This wonderful achievement reflects the continued effort of the Oncology Times' team to stay abreast of significant oncology events and present the most accurate, timely, and relevant content to you, our readers.
Letter to the Editor
[Peggy] Eastman's article does not address cancer patients under the new Medicaid system. Here is a frontline report: "it's not working!" (Medicaid Expansion & Innovation Paying Off for Low-Income Americans, Oncology Times 2016;38(20):1,8-9).
The new system has herded Medicaid patients into new, poorly funded HMOs. These new products may or may not have a referral system to send your patients. Many if not most of the major referral centers in our area don't take the new HMOs, denying new therapy to patients who could have been referred under the old system. The new HMOs require endless peer to peer for standard medical oncology. The new HMOs have a limited formulary and some drugs are not available to the Medicaid population.
In Illinois, 25-30 percent of the population is on Medicaid and the ACA hasn't even begun to kick in. The Medicaid budget is the second largest expense for the state and that number is going to grow in the next 3 years because the federal government will begin to withdraw their support. This is the planned move by the feds to wean the states off the present funding formula.
Since Illinois is $110 billion in debt, any cutback in support will be felt at the state level.
More people live in poverty today, so naturally more people are on Medicaid. The ACA is, as Bill Clinton put it, "crazy."
-Jim Knost, MD
Do you have thoughts you'd like to share about issues in the profession? Send your Letters to the Editor to Editor Pamela Tarapchak at [email protected].
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