Key Practice Indicators in Office-Based Oncology Practices: 2007 Report on 2006 Data

Abstract

As community-based oncology practices continue to adjust to changes made by payers, both government and private, the metrics needed to assess business changes become increasingly more important. A January 2007 Report to Congress by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) stated that “physicians reorganized their practices to become more efficient and control costs by obtaining lower prices on drugs,” and “all practices made at least some changes to lower their expenses, particularly their drug and staffing costs.”1 In 2006, Onmark, an Oncology Therapeutics Network (OTN) company, conducted the Office-Based Oncology Business Benchmarking Survey, and reported highlights of the results in the Journal of Oncology Practice.2 Recognizing that community-based oncology has a strong desire to monitor and trend the key practice indicators (KPIs) that were established last year, the company conducted the second annual Business Benchmarking Survey in Spring 2007. The oncology-specific business benchmarks contained in this article update these KPIs and also compare the 2007 survey results with those from 2006. Onmark is one of the largest group purchasing organizations in the community-based treatment setting, with more than 2,400 members representing more than 4,000 physicians and more than $6 billion in annual drug purchases. As with the 2006 survey, Oncology Metrics LLC was commissioned to conduct the survey and report the results to ensure that the identity of the participating oncology practices was kept confidential. To provide comparative results, the operational and financial benchmarks remained essentially the same as last year. One specific addition to this year's report is the metric of established patient visits per full-time equivalent (FTE) medical oncologist per year. This was included to help validate physician workload as it relates to new patients per FTE medical oncologist per year. An optional section was also added to the 2007 survey that included questions about staffing and staff compensation. This year's report in the Journal of Oncology Practice includes both business operational and financial benchmarks.