How Traveling Oncologists Can Benefit Rural Cancer Patients

Traveling oncologists can benefit cancer patients living in rural areas, according to research published in JCO Oncology Practice.

Researchers found that oncologists who travel outside their hospital service area to provide patient care can reduce travel times for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Women, patients living in disadvantaged areas, and patients with more comorbidities were among those more likely to receive care from traveling oncologists.

For this study, researchers analyzed 355,159 fee-for service Medicare beneficiaries who lived in rural areas and had breast, colorectal, or lung cancer. The researchers linked these patients to 39,960 oncologists and found that 9935 (24.9%) oncologists traveled outside their hospital service area to provide care.

Most of the traveling oncologists (57.8%) were considered low-frequency travelers (0-1 outreach visits per month), 21.1% were medium-frequency travelers (1-3 visits per month), and 21.1% were high-frequency travelers (more than 3 visits per month). Travel frequency across specialties can be seen in the table below.

Travel Frequency Across Specialties
	No Travel	Low Frequency	Medium Frequency	High Frequency
All oncologists (n=39,960)	30,025 (75.1%)	5742 (14.4%)	2097 (5.2%)	2096 (5.2%)
Surgical oncologists (n=22,731)	18,053 (79.4%)	3207 (14.1%)	904 (4.0%)	567 (2.5%)
Medical oncologists (n=12,454)	8760 (70.3%)	1821 (14.6%)	892 (7.2%)	981 (7.9%)
Radiation oncologists (n=4775)	3212 (67.3%)	714 (15.0%)	301 (6.3%)	548 (11.5%)

 

The researchers also looked at outreach visits according to the treatment patients received. Among patients treated with chemotherapy, 213 (3.6%) received outreach visits, and 5661 (96.4%) did not. There were no significant differences between patients who received chemotherapy via outreach and those who did not.

Among patients treated with radiotherapy, 1861 (6.9%) received outreach visits, and 25,259 (93.1%) did not. The outreach recipients in this cohort were more likely than non-recipients to be women (P <.01), live in disadvantaged areas (P <.01), have breast cancer (rather than colorectal/lung cancer; P <.01), and have nonmetastatic disease (P <.01).

Among patients treated with surgery, 1302 (2.5%) received outreach visits, and 50,413 (97.5%) did not. The outreach recipients in this cohort were more likely than non-recipients to have lung cancer (rather than breast/colorectal cancer; P =.01) and have more comorbidities (P <.01).

The researchers noted that, overall, patients had median one-way travel times of 83.3 minutes to chemotherapy, 76.4 minutes to radiotherapy, and 75.8 minutes to surgery. Outreach visits were expected to provide an estimated one-way savings of 15.9 minutes for chemotherapy and 11.9 minutes for radiotherapy but no time savings for surgery.

“Traveling oncologists play a critical role in rural cancer care delivery, and our results support oncology outreach as an effective strategy for extending rural access to cancer care,” the researchers wrote.

Disclosures: One study author declared affiliations with biotech, pharmaceutical, and/or device companies. Please see the original reference for a full list of disclosures.

This article originally appeared on Cancer Therapy Advisor