The U.S. government on Thursday announced a cancer care initiative for Medicare beneficiaries that will link payments to oncology practices to quality of care and patient outcomes as a means of improving treatments and cutting costs. The initiative by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, comes as expensive new cancer treatments put an increasing strain on state and federal healthcare budgets. "We aim to provide Medicare beneficiaries struggling with cancer with high-quality care around the clock and to reward doctors for the value, not volume, of care they provide," Dr. Patrick Conway, the chief medical officer for CMS, said in a statement.
