Tag Archives: Healthcare

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips

Some Health Providers Alter Cancer Care Payments by Bundling

Reducing Cancer Care Costs
Reducing Cancer Care Costs

A new payment method for treating certain types of is cancer being tried by the country’s largest health insurer. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) has announced they will soon launch a pilot program with Houston based MD Anderson Cancer Center. Rather than multiple fee-for-service payments, UNH will pay the cancer center a single bundled payment for treatment of head and neck cancer.

Eliminate billing inefficiencies

The innovative payment plan is to last for three years. Studies have shown that paying several individual fees for testing, radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy cost more than the bundled payment method. UNH believes they can eliminate cost brought on by bureaucratic red tape and give both doctors and patients a better idea what the treatment will cost before it is underway.

Better coordination among doctors

Cancer treatment and related drug cost account for about 11 percent of UNH’s health plan expenditures. While treatment of head and neck cancer is a small part of that, it does involve physicians of various specialties. They will have to work together more closely under the bundled payment plan. If the pilot program does prove successful, UNH plans to expand it to the treatment of other types of cancer.

Our Approach is Different

These are just two of the many types of cancers that Issels® Integrative Immuno-Oncology has successfully kept in remission for thousands of patients. Without the problem of bundling by such as by some providers, Issels® is able to provide the treatment that you need instead of a “cookie cutter” approach.

For more information about the highly personalized treatment protocols, non-toxic cancer vaccines, and cell therapies used by Issels® Integrative Immuno-Oncology, contact us today. Our therapies are based on 60 years of successful cancer treatment and extensive scientific research.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips, Uncategorized

New Cancer Treatments Raise Costs and Concerns of Who Will Pay

Who Will Pay!!
Who Will Pay!!

As new medical breakthroughs successfully treat cancer at an increased rate, those suffering from a devastating diagnosis now have renewed hope as well as concerns over who will pay for the growing treatment costs. New drugs and procedures, which are designed to restore function to a compromised immune system, are being routinely developed to target specific variations of cancer, and they often carry a high price tag.

Many cancer treatments are done with a combination of drug and alternative therapies which work together to support the immune system while destroying cancerous cells. As medical science develops new options, they have to be mindful not to break the current healthcare budget of the nation. A compromise will eventually have to be made as the demand for these treatments increases, and profits may have to fall so that the system will be sustainable and fair.

With many new cancer treatments, who gets what is driven by the insurance companies who in an effort to control costs, may not cover payments for some of the most effective treatments. In some cases the most practical option may be to self-pay to receive the best quality care.

Targeted therapies, such as those available through Issels focus on the individual, and the cancer that has been inherited due to genetic predisposition, lifestyle, environment, or other influences. At Issels, we have two unique protocols when it comes to approaching treatment; therapies specific to cancer cells and tumors, and a non-toxic immunobiologic core treatment which plays an important role in cancer regression and healing.

Our techniques are some of the most advanced and most celebrated developments in the field. Issels combines various treatment options including cancer vaccines and immune enhancement technologies to focus not only on the tumor itself, but also the underlying causes of development. For more information on alternative cancer treatments, visit our website today.

Cancer Care Tips, News

U.S. Watching British Fight to Expand Healthcare Coverage to Experimental Cancer Treatments

Cancer patients and healthcare providers are watching the progress of a proposed British bill that would allow the country’s nationalized healthcare system to pay for experimental cancer treatments even if there is no proof they work. Like Britain,

Concerned citizens are watching.
Concerned citizens are watching.

America’s established medical and insurance communities favor long-standing traditional cancer treatments and have been slow to recognize the value of what they term alternative and complementary medicine, much less embrace the healing potential of experimental cancer treatments. Under current British law, experimental cancer treatments are illegal in the United Kingdom, a situation the bill’s author, Lord Maurice Saatchi, hopes to change. Should Parliament approve the bill, it could open the door for the expansion of approved cancer treatments in the U.S.Lord Saatchi, who lost his wife, novelist Josephine Hart, to ovarian cancer two years ago admits that his bill is motivated by grief. He has characterized as “medieval” his wife’s cancer treatment, calling the chemotherapy and radiation she received as “degrading and ineffective.” Under British law, physicians must adhere to standard medical practice or face possible prosecution. Saatchi considers the law’s restrictions a serious impediment to new cancer treatments that may offer cancer patients hope.

In Parliamentary debate, government health minister Lord Frederick Howe pointed out one of the serious problems in bringing cancer treatments to the consumer marketplace, the role entrenched medical and government bureaucracies play in delaying the approval of cancer therapies and drugs, an issue relevant to U.S. cancer treatments.

“It still takes an estimated average of 17 years for only 14% of new scientific discoveries to enter day-to-day clinical practice,” Howe said, adding the obvious, “This is not acceptable.”