Oncology in Rural Areas

Rural areas experience significant gaps in access to oncology services and providers. Hospitals in rural areas cite the high cost of cancer treatments and services as barriers to providing oncology services.

This is the context in which Kelsey Owsley and Cathy Bradley explore the 340B Drug Pricing Program, a program which "allows eligible not-for-profit and public hospitals to purchase covered outpatient drugs, including high-cost oncology drugs, at discounted prices."

The coauthors of the article, released earlier this month in Health Affairs, examine the drug program’s impact on the incorporation of oncology services into rural hospitals.

Owsley and Bradley find that those rural hospitals without oncology services that joined the 340B Drug Pricing Program were more likely to begin providing oncology services by 2020 than those hospitals that did not join the program.
For more on the paper’s findings, listen to Kelsey Owsley and Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil on A Health Podyssey.

About Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.

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