Originally Published July 2018

Oncology practices in the United States face an uncertain care delivery environment primarily attributable to increasing demand for oncology services, uneven geographic distributions of providers, expanding complexity of cancer treatments, and mounting costs of operations and drug procurement. At the same time, practices have opportunities to make meaningful improvements in their processes and procedures through incentives provided by new payment models, quality assessment reporting, and technologic advancements. As the principal professional organization serving oncology providers, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) routinely solicits information from its membership to explore and explain these challenges and opportunities.

Since 2012, ASCO has surveyed US oncology practices annually to learn about their composition and the internal and external pressures they face. To frame the survey findings within the broader oncology landscape, ASCO has begun using publicly available data to catalog oncology practices in the United States, including multidisciplinary practices. This article summarizes the sixth annual Census survey and the geographic practice scan. The results will inform ASCO’s strategies to better support practices and its policy initiatives, as well as provide a framework for selecting topics for the State of Cancer Care in America article series in the Journal of Oncology Practice (Polite et al, manuscript submitted for publication).

Read more on the State of Cancer Care in America (SOCCA) series in the Journal of Oncology Practice.

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