"Cancer Centers of America" commercials

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guitarguy23

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Why do I find these things slightly shady? How legit are these places? They seem like scams designed to suck money from affluent cancer patients.

Can anyone explain their model and whether they actually are good for patient care? I just have no clue what they are all about.
 
Why do I find these things slightly shady? How legit are these places? They seem like scams designed to suck money from affluent cancer patients.

Can anyone explain their model and whether they actually are good for patient care? I just have no clue what they are all about.

Your correct in your assumptions, I'm sure the oncologists there are fine and dandy but they throw on lots of bs to drain the $$$ from the pour souls who are willing to try anything to cure their terminal cancer 🙁. They are for profit and make loads of money hence the advertising.
 
Lost a patient of mine with metastatic melanoma to one of them, because "they have a free smoothie machine" in their 'office.' That, and some questionable "treatments."

Hope he's still alive.
 
Your correct in your assumptions, I'm sure the oncologists there are fine and dandy but they throw on lots of bs to drain the $$$ from the pour souls who are willing to try anything to cure their terminal cancer 🙁. They are for profit and make loads of money hence the advertising.

you realize there's no actual difference between how a non-profit and a for-profit institution operate right? like some of the most financially aggressive and high paying companies are non-profits...

you can say they try to drain people's money, but that has literally nothing to do with being for profit or not for profit. having/not having a profit doesn't tell you anything about the money management of the institution.
 
We had a speaker that had a hard to cure cancer come speak to us, years of being in remission. He originally tried to get into this place and they turned him down because his case would ruin their cure rate. Just sayin

ya, but that's no different than surgeons turning down poor surgical candidates because it'd ruin their stats as well. This **** happens all the time.

Your correct in your assumptions, I'm sure the oncologists there are fine and dandy but they throw on lots of bs to drain the $$$ from the pour souls who are willing to try anything to cure their terminal cancer 🙁. They are for profit and make loads of money hence the advertising.

yep. OTOH, some patients are so needy and so desperate that they'll do anything for attention/hope. These guys provide a service for a fee. Not sure how I feel overall, but I can see the potential in this niche. It's actually quite clever and at the end of the day, everyone can go home and pat themselves on the back for doing a great job.
 
They offer a lot of bull**** holistic treatment options as well. The attendings on my radonc rotation made fun of them constantly
 
ya, but that's no different than surgeons turning down poor surgical candidates because it'd ruin their stats as well. This **** happens all the time.

I venture you are misunderstanding why we refuse to operate on some patients. It has nothing to do with protecting our "stats".
 
We had a speaker that had a hard to cure cancer come speak to us, years of being in remission. He originally tried to get into this place and they turned him down because his case would ruin their cure rate. Just sayin
They're guilty of manipulating their data in many ways.

The most glaring of which is to claim a higher cure rates by comparing their younger, better insured, healthier, and earlier stage patients to the largely Medicare and Medicaid SEER database.
 
I found an old thread about this place on the Rad Onc forum.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/cancer-treatment-centers-of-america-radoncs.959978/

Also, I saw a recent commercial of theirs and it featured doctor explaining the treatments available there. Anyways, I Googled this person's name and apparently he worked in academia previously, which I thought was interesting.

Academics doesn't pay as well as other options in general, the internal politics of such places can be obnoxious and frustrating, and for anyone at a state institution it's generally a really bad time considering how state governments are functioning right now. Don't be surprised at the number of older physicians who say "f*ck it" and take the payday after years of doing the work.

It's why you have to shake your head at the arguments on SDN that are along the lines of "Well [Shady school]'s new dean is from [more prestigous institution], so that clearly makes them legit!"
 
Lost a patient of mine with metastatic melanoma to one of them, because "they have a free smoothie machine" in their 'office.'

Man, is Mrs. Pacna going to be happy I perused SDN today.
 
ya, but that's no different than surgeons turning down poor surgical candidates because it'd ruin their stats as well. This **** happens all the time.

yeah wonder why surgeons would turn down poor surgical candidates if their patients either won't survive the surgery or won't live long enough for it to be beneficial. definitely stats
 
yeah wonder why surgeons would turn down poor surgical candidates if their patients either won't survive the surgery or won't live long enough for it to be beneficial. definitely stats

It's attitudes like @notbobtrustme that lead people into treating surgical consults like ordering items off a menu.

You're not consulting us to do a colectomy. You're consulting us to assess the patient and give expert recommendations on care which may or may not include attempting a colectomy on a patient in florid septic shock with a pH of 6.9.
 
just relaying what I've heard on the floors.

It might "ruin their stats," but there's also something to be said about "doing no harm." I think operating on a patient that has little to no chance of survival (i.e., "is not a surgical candidate") would fall in the "doing harm" category.
 
It's attitudes like @notbobtrustme that lead people into treating surgical consults like ordering items off a menu.

You're not consulting us to do a colectomy. You're consulting us to assess the patient and give expert recommendations on care which may or may not include attempting a colectomy on a patient in florid septic shock with a pH of 6.9.

So the things being ordered are patient assessment and an expert recommendation.
 
just relaying what I've heard on the floors.
From whom? Surgeons or allied health staff?

I guarantee you if it was the former it was done in jest. The reason patients are chosen for nonoperative management is more about not hurting them and/or failing to provide a benefit. I turn patients down for surgeries all the time because I cannot provide what they're looking for not because it will ruin my stats.
 
While I share in the general sentiments, there has been wide scale criticism of potential outcomes gaming in public reporting, particularly in the case of cardiac surgery.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/nyregion/death-rate-rankings-shake-new-york-cardiac-surgeons.html

Outcome reporting is like Schrodinger's cat or maybe Heisenberg's uncertainty postulate. Once you start to try to measure it, it ceases to be a useful measure. People will play games with the numbers, which may or may not be useful to begin with. There are confounding factors that affect the numbers which may or may not be under the surgeon's control and measurement of quality is a very nebulous thing to begin with. Everyone at each facility knows who the good ones are but how do you measure it?
 
From whom? Surgeons or allied health staff?

I guarantee you if it was the former it was done in jest. The reason patients are chosen for nonoperative management is more about not hurting them and/or failing to provide a benefit. I turn patients down for surgeries all the time because I cannot provide what they're looking for not because it will ruin my stats.

mostly other physicians, but not surgeons.
 
mostly other physicians, but not surgeons.
Which makes sense.

Non-surgeons often have no idea, despite medical school rotations, what goes into surgical decision making.

As @VisionaryTics notes, they can treat us as if we're simply there to do "operation X" at their request without any thought given to the risk to the patient.

This really hit home not more than 1 month ago when a very poor surgical candidate presented to my business partner. She balked at surgical management much to the dismay of her PCP, her oncologist and even her physician son. She was pressured from all sides to give in and surgically manage this woman's malignancy. When the woman died of an MI last month, "told ya so" crossed our minds.
 
Oh my. That hurts to see.

Here is one of them. I did not know these places were like this.

(ND = naturopathic doctor, LAc = licensed acupuncturist, FABNO = fellow of the american board of naturopathic oncologists (!?!))

He doesn't list have any letters after his name for it, but his profile also lists this:
  • Massage Diploma - Brenneke School of Massage, Seattle

define naturopathic oncologists

" oh just go sit in the tanning bed, the UV light does something with the DNA, that's gotta be good for cancer, right?"
 
define naturopathic oncologists

" oh just go sit in the tanning bed, the UV light does something with the DNA, that's gotta be good for cancer, right?"

I can't believe I'm linking to this, but you actually aren't far off with your UV light thing:

http://www.oasisofhope.com/ozone-therapy.php

Scroll down to "UV light" therapy. This is not the first time I've heard of this...thing
 
Ugh... years ago there was a Chiro in my hometown who was charged after offering "Breast adjustments" as a procedure...

wtf

dude gets paid to basically give breast massages though so I guess he might have some brains
 
While I share in the general sentiments, there has been wide scale criticism of potential outcomes gaming in public reporting, particularly in the case of cardiac surgery.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/nyregion/death-rate-rankings-shake-new-york-cardiac-surgeons.html
True dat.

I was not attempting to be disingenuous as I am aware that there is misreporting (both intentional and not) of such data, especially for those whose careers and reputations depend on having a low "kill rate". I think we can all agree that *most* of us are not concerned with such things when making a surgical decision about whom to offer surgery but rather focus on what's best for the patient.
 
Ugh... years ago there was a Chiro in my hometown who was charged after offering "Breast adjustments" as a procedure...

your breasts are out of alignment.

this can cause many problems including cancer.

$200 please.
 
My mother...ugh. Had colon cancer ten years ago, had surgery at sloan, decided against radiation and chemo despite all of us screaming at her about it repeatedly, flies to sedona twice a year to see some naturopathic doctor for unspecified treatments that i know are stupid expensive and not covered by insurance, and only because my dad refused to pay for aforementioned treatments unless she continued to f/u with her sloan doctors whenever they wanted to see her, does she even go to them. Its a ****ing nightmare, and all her stupid gossipy weirdo friends are into this "natural ayurvedic medicine" crap too, when theyre at the house for tea i dont even go there bc itll end up being WW3- fancy vs the idiot housewives of new york
 
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