Very Brief Blog: New Report on Rate of Closings and Mergers in US Oncology Practices

As reported by ASCO POST on April 23, 2018, the Community Oncology Alliance released its 2018 practice report - showing the continuation of a dramatic shift of oncology care towards hospitals and hospital-owned practices.

See ASCO POST here.   See the 2018 report (PDF) here.   The topic is inevitably tied to 340B drug purchase programs; see NEJM 2018 here and Congress Energy & Commerce Committee 2018 here.

In highlights,

• 423 clinics closed
• 658 acquired by hospitals
• 168 merged or acquired other than hospitals

Also,

• 359 more clinics were "struggling" and
• 45 clinics stated they were referring Medicare patients elsewhere.

In the figure below "blue" dots are practices acquired by hospials and "purple" dots were merged or acquired.  

Consolidation of oncology providers can also affect practices for detailing and providing oncology drugs and diagnostics.