Understanding the Prospects of Transferred Cancer Patients
By Josh Gray and Maria Monahan Introduction Hospitalized cancer patients face difficult decisions in balancing quality and quantity of life. For patients receiving care in community or rural hospitals, one such decision is whether to transfer to more specialized cancer programs. Transferring might extend survival, but receiving care far from home could mean a lower […]
Top Cancer Programs Offer Better Outcomes for Transferred Patients
By Josh Gray and Maria Monahan Key points In 2023, there were 253,559 hospital-to-hospital transfers for Medicare fee-for-service patients with cancer diagnoses Among the top 20 hospital-based cancer programs as defined by U.S. News and World Report, there were 10,992 transfers for cancer patients Patients at these top programs had substantially lower mortality than expected […]