Episode #222 Helping All Cancer Patients Access Hope with Dr. Yousuf Zafar, Chief Medical Officer, AccessHope

Forty percent of the time, oncology care is not being delivered in concordance with guidelines. FORTY PERCENT!

As our guest today explains, that’s not because of bad doctors. It’s because oncology care changes rapidly and because almost eighty percent of patients are being seen by a community oncologist, a physician who is responsible for treating ALL types of cancer, instead of a specialist. How can we address that? Well, as Dr. Yousuf Zafar explains, there are really three options.

The patient travels to an NCI Cancer Center to seek a second opinion. This is obviously expensive and inconvenient and out of scope for many patients.  The patient’s provider calls another oncologist in their network consult on the case. These relationships are critical but not universal. We can formalize this provider-to-provider framework and have it paid for by a patient’s employer. This is the basis for AccessHope.

Today’s guest is a practicing oncologist and adjunct professor at Duke University, and chief medical officer at AccessHope, where he focuses on expanding access to expert cancer care for patients treated outside of academic centers. While National Cancer Institute Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers deliver superior outcomes, they treat only 20 percent of cancer patients. Dr. Zafar is working to extend that expertise to the remaining 80 percent.