On September 25-26, ASCO held its 2019 Advocacy Summit, during which oncology care providers from across the United States came to Capitol Hill to urge Members of Congress to support policies that will improve access to high-quality, high-value care for people living with cancer. Listen to coverage in this new ASCO in Action podcast.


Transcript


Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.  


Dr. Clifford Hudis: Welcome to this ASCO in Action podcast, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content, and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all of ASCO's podcasts, including this one, at podcast.asco.org.  


My name is Clifford Hudis, and I'm the CEO of ASCO, as well as the host of the ASCO in Action podcast series, which explores policy and practice issues that impact oncologists, the entire cancer care delivery team, and the individuals we care for: people with cancer.  


Recently, ASCO held its 2019 Advocacy Summit. More than 130 oncology care providers from across the United States came here to Washington DC to meet with members of Congress and to urge support for policies that improve access to high-quality, high-value care for people living with cancer.  


This is one of the highest impact events that ASCO holds every year. There's nothing like seeing ASCO advocates hit the halls of Congress with such passion and dedication, with the collective goal of ensuring that lawmakers focus on policy changes that will improve the lives of people with cancer and the care they receive.  


ASCO president Dr. Howard, or "Skip", Burris kicked off the activities at the Advocacy Summit and spoke about why it's so important for us to be on Capitol Hill.  


Dr. Howard “Skip” Burris: ASCO's on Capitol Hill today so that our members actually get to meet with their representatives and congressmen and their staff so they understand how important cancer care is to this country, and to make sure that they understand the issues that are facing our patients that we care for who are experiencing cancer.  


The decisions that Congress makes, with regard to health care and cancer care in particular, is so important and powerful to cancer patients. Access to therapy, timely access to getting treatments initiated, making sure that there's appropriate coverage of new therapies, all those things are critical for us to implement the great scientific and clinical advances that we've made into the care and outcomes for our patients.  


Dr. Clifford Hudis: ASCO advocates asked lawmakers for their support for legislation that will make a big difference in the lives of individuals with cancer. One of those pieces of legislation is HR 913, the CLINICAL TREATMENT Act, which would guarantee coverage of the routine care costs associated with clinical trial participation for Medicaid enrollees with life-threatening conditions, including cancer. Medicaid is the only major payer, including Medicare, that is not required to cover these care costs today, and we hope to address this.  


Dr. Karen Winkfield, chair of ASCO's Diversity Inclusion Task Force, says that changing this policy is critical to improving the validity of clinical research data and to improving patient outcomes. Dr. Karen Winkfield joined other ASCO advocates in urging members of Congress to support this bill.  


Dr. Karen Winkfield: So the Clinical Treatment Act is really vitally important because it will allow all patients equal opportunity to access clinical trials that would be beneficial to not only them, but also other individuals who may come from the same backgrounds, including racial and ethnically diverse populations, but also those of lower socioeconomic status. We want our clinical trial to be representative of every single individual in this country.  


Dr. Clifford Hudis: The Advocacy Summit was packed with meetings with congressional lawmakers and their staff. Dr. Jason Westin, a member of ASCO's Government Relations Committee, participated in the summit and he spoke about why these direct meetings are so important.  


Dr. Jason Westin: I think advocacy is very important for cancer doctors and cancer professionals to be an advocate for our patients. I think that there are so many opportunities for us to help our patients in the clinic, in the research arena. But if we're not involved in advocacy, then others are advocating in other directions that may not benefit our patients in the way that we would like.  


Many doctors view that as so...

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