"Pathologists are far from powerless in helping to determine whether there will be appropriate payment for cancer biomarker tests."

Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2015 Mar;139(3):300-4. doi: 10.5858/arpa.2014-0190-ED.

Payment for cancer biomarker testing.

Allen TC1.

Author information

• 1From the Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston.

Pathologists are far from powerless in helping to determine whether there will be appropriate payment for cancer biomarker tests. Clinical guidelines, prepared by pathologists with their nonpathologist colleagues, will increasingly be used by payers in determining whether to pay for a biomarker test.10 Pathologists have a central role in the production of evidence-based health policy literature that is now required to answer questions of cancer biomarker test utility so that payers can correctly determine payment structures for these tests and the resulting treatments.22 And ultimately, when cancer biomarker utility has been demonstrated, ‘‘personalized cancer therapy will become the financially preferred model, by treating the [right] patient with the right therapy, the first time, achieving prolonged responses, and, ultimately leading to cures.’’