Enrolling patients in clinical trials at OneOncology partner practices has slightly increased in March and April, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit its communities hardest.
OneOncology, a national partnership of independent, community oncology practices, includes five large community oncology practices representing over 400 physicians practicing at more than 160 sites of care in the United States.
“Elective medical procedures have stopped, but caring for cancer patients isn’t elective,” Jeff Patton, OneOncology’s acting CEO and president of Physician Services, said in a statement. “Not only do community oncology centers remain open, providing patients life-saving treatments, we also continue to provide clinical trials at a steady to increased rate. Our centers are continuing to fulfill our collective mission.”
When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid temporarily loosened its regulations to allow providers to be reimbursed for telehealth visits, the agency allowed researchers to keep some clinical trials open by evaluating and enrolling out-of-state patients.
“By loosening the regulations at both the federal and state levels, we were able to evaluate patients for eligibility in clinical trials that we otherwise couldn’t because of state licensing requirements,” Natalie Dickson, chief medical officer at Tennessee Oncology and chair of OneCouncil, the partnership’s all-physician committee, said in a statement.
