Headlines about the sequester budget cuts over the last week have focused on airline delays and Federal Aviation Administration furloughs, but the impact of the cuts could be taking a much graver toll on Medicare patients with cancer.

Physician earnings are up, but fewer and fewer said they would go into medicine if they could do it all over again, according to the Physician Compensation Report 2013 from Medscape.

As mounting research points to unsustainable costs in cancer treatments and a lack of clarity in oncology clinical trials, a trio of experts has proposed a new model to attain accountable cancer care—Cancer Care Groups (CCGs)—in a viewpoint published online April 29 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

A systemic analysis of clinical oncology trials shows discrepancies in the structure of cancer trials as well as differences among oncology studies, according to a study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. The findings suggest room for improvement to help stakeholders and policy makers understand how research affects practice and determine optimal use of healthcare resources.

Bundled payments may offer more revenue opportunities for practices or bring headaches and concerns, but either way, practices should take a close look at their processes to find ways to streamline, according to an article published in the April issue of The American Journal of Managed Care.

A picture paints a thousand words. Seeing inside the body, without recourse to a scalpel, through x-rays, CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds, has revolutionized patient diagnosis and treatment. Yet the sought for certainty and confirmation of suspected diagnoses is not always conclusive, and may introduce unintended consequences, such as investigation momentum: additional, and potentially excessive and invasive, diagnostic testing.

As price tags for recently FDA-approved drugs to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) have soared past the $100, 000 level, a group of more than 100 oncologists have characterized the price tags as “too high and unsustainable,” and argued that prices may impede needy patients’ access to treatment and threaten the sustainability of healthcare systems in an article published online April 25 in Blood.

It appears there are just two remaining potential bidders vying for control of Carestream Health, according to a Reuters report.