California Oncology Weekly
"Where California Oncologists Go For Answers!"
A publication of the
Medical Oncology Association of Southern California, Inc.
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This Weekly's Hot Topics
- Updates to Mandatory Labor Law posting requirements California News
- Best of SABCS Northern California January 11. ANCO News
- 2020 Federal Law Updates National News
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- There have been updates to Mandatory Labor Law posting requirements that affect your business in California. In order for your business to stay in compliance with these recent changes, the following four (4) updated posting(s) must be downloaded, printed and then posted next to your current labor law poster.
*The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has updated their Family Care and Medical Leave and Pregnancy Disability Leave notice
. The updated notice reflects that the California Family Rights Act prohibits employers from denying or interfering with an employee's request for Pregnancy Disability Leave. The poster was also updated with contact information for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The poster revision date is January 1, 2020. Download in English.
*The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has updated the "Your Rights and Obligations as a Pregnant Employee" notice. The updated notice reflects that employees may take up to 12 workweeks of CFRA (California Family Rights Act) leave in a 12-month period. CFRA leave may be taken after the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of an employee's child, or if the employee, their parent, child or spouse has a serious health condition. In addition, if the employer has less than 50 employees at the worksite, or within 75 miles of the worksite, but at least 20 employees at the worksite, or within 75 miles of the worksite, employees may have the right to a family care leave for the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of the employee's child under the New Parent Leave Act (NPLA). Similar to CFRA leave, NPLA leave may be taken for up to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period. While the law provides only unpaid leave, an employee may choose to use (or the employer may require use of) accrued paid leave. The poster revision date is January 1, 2020. Download in English.
*The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has updated their Workplace Discrimination and Harassment notice. The updated notice reflects that employers may not discriminate based on a person's hair texture or protective hairstyle. In addition, the deadline to file an allegation of unlawful workplace discrimination/harassment has been extended from one year to three years. The poster revision date is January 1, 2020. Download in English.
*The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has updated their Transgender Rights in the Workplace notice. The updated notice reflects that the deadline to file an allegation of unlawful workplace discrimination/harassment has been extended from one year to three years. The poster revision date is January 1, 2020. Download in English.
- In 2019 the California Medical Association (CMA) won key victories to improve public
health, expand access to care, remove administrative burdens and ensure physicians are fairly compensated for the work they do
. Building on these victories the CMA will continue, in the new year, to ensure California's physicians have a strong voice in Sacramento and Washington, D.C, and that California can transform it's health care system into a model for the entire nation.
Learn more at
cmadocs.org/year-in-review
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- Noridian/JEMAC has the following updates on their website
Publications:
* National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI)
* Open Payments: Review and Dispute Data by December 31
* Quality Payment Program: Check Your Final 2019 MIPS Eligibility Status
* Quality Payment Program: MIPS Low-Volume Threshold Criteria for 2019
* Self-Administered Drug Exclusion List-R16
* Billing and Coding: Nerve Blockade for Treatment of Chronic Pain and Neuropathy-R2
* AUC for Advanced Diagnostic Imaging-Educational and Operations Testing Period-Claims Processing Requirements-Revised CR11268
* Update to Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapters 1, 23, and 35 CR10882
Forthcoming Noridian JEMAC meetings/webinars/workshops
* What's New in the First Quarter 2020-After Hours Webinar-(January 7)
* Basics of Provider Enrollment Webinar (January 8)
* What's New in the First Quarter 2020-After Hours Webinar-(January 14)
* New Opt-Out Process Webinar (January 15)
* Modifier 59, NCCI and MUEs Webinar (January 16)
* Medicare Part A/B Revalidation Webinar (January 29)
* Submitting Your Enrollment Online Part 1(I&A) Webinar (February 26)
* Common Error when Enrolling in Medicare Webinar (March 4)
* Submitting Your Enrollment Online Part 2 *(PECOS) Webinar (March 18)
* Rebuttal, Reconsiderations and CAPS Webinar (April 8)
* Medicare Part A/B Revalidation Webinar (April 22)
For more information and to register visit:
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- MOASC has secured a special PHYSICIAN'S encore webinar with the California Medicare contractor Medical Director, Arthur Lurvey, MD, FACP, FACE, who will present Getting Ready for Medicare in 2020 and 2021, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm-PST. Physicians, NPP's and all interested staff are welcome. The webinar affords physicians to enter into live dialogue and Q&A with the California Medicare medical director. For more information, and to register for this webinar, contact the MOASC office at
[email protected] or call 909-985-9061 x1.
- Mark your calendar for the MOASC Spotlight on Hematology on Saturday, February 1, 2020, 9am to 2pm, at The Waterfront Hilton in Huntington Beach. Through a grant from MOASC, UCI brings speakers from UCI, Loma Linda and City of Hope to present the highlights from ASH's Annual Meeting & Exposition. Contact the MOASC office at 909-985-9061 ext.1 or
[email protected] or www.moasc.org
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"Exciting Advances in Oncology"
is the focus at theMOASC
2020 Annual Educational Symposium
and celebration of MOASC's 30th Anniversary
on Saturday, March 14, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach. Speakers will highlight advances in several areas of oncology including melanoma, lymphoma, breast, colon, prostate, kidney, and lung cancers, among others. To register, contact the MOASC office at [email protected] or 909-985-9061 x1. #MOASC30
- MOASC Member, City of Hope CME presents: Immunotherapy of Cancer: CAR T Cell to Checkpoint Inhibitors March 18, 2020 to March 21, 2020 at the Waldorf Astoria, Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information click
here. To register go to https://cme.cityofhope.org/eventinfo_11295.html
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- REGISTER for Best of SABCS Northern California taking place in Berkeley on January 11. Best of SABCS is cosponsored by ANCO and Encore Medical Education.
- REGISTER for the 20th Multidisciplinary Management of Cancers: A Case-based Approach taking place in Napa on March 13-15.
- Download Bobbi Buell's Hot Topics in Reimbursement 2020 (slides from her January 2nd ANCO webcast).
- ANCO physician members elected the following four Board members to serve three-year terms (2020-2022, inclusive)--Matthew Gubens MD; Tyler Paul Johnson, MD; Michael Zachary Koontz, MD; and, Stephanie Ossowski, MD. ANCO thanks Drs. Ostap Melnyk and Robert Robles for their service to the ANCO Board.
- Congratulations to ANCO member Beverly S. Mitchell, MD, Stanford University on her election to the ASCO Nominating Committee.
- Follow ANCO on Twitter at @ANCO News.
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National News
- 2020 Federal Law Updates:
*New Minimum Salary for Exempt Employees
Starting January 1, 2020, most employees who are classified as exempt under the executive, administrative, professional, and computer employee exemptions must be paid at least $684 per week or $35,568 per year.
*New W-4
Employers now need to provide the redesigned Form W-4 to new employees and current employees who want to change their withholdings. Employees who have submitted Form W-4 in any year before 2020 are not required to submit a new form merely because of the redesign. Employers should continue to compute withholding based on the information from the employee's most recently submitted Form W-4. Two of the biggest changes to the form are the elimination of allowances, which have been replaced by dollar values to calculate withholding, and the addition of boxes to indicate if workers hold multiple jobs or are in two-earner households.
- Pharmacy Podcast Network
speaks with guests from different organizations about their efforts to reform Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM) predatory business practice to preserve patient's access to life-saving medicine and protect independent pharmacies. The podcasts contain guests from the National Community Pharmacy Associationand Pharmacists for Truth Transparency. Click here to listen to an episode.
- As patients take on increasingly heavy financial burdens for their health care through premiums, copays and deductibles, their tolerance for subpar service diminishes. The call to action for physician practices is to elevate their own standards for service, convenience, transparency and communication. To stand up to these challenges, the author of the white paper on "A Guide to Patient Satisfaction in the Age of Consumerism" says, practices must develop a plan that optimizes processes and technology to deliver an empowering, consumer-oriented experience. download it here.
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CMS News
- Last year, Medicare paid for $725 million worth of expensive medications administered in outpatient clinics, such as chemotherapy drugs, that ended up being discarded
, according to new data released by the federal government.
10 highly discarded drugs accounted for 63% of Medicare's wasted dollars.
More than 26% of what Medicare paid for blood cancer drug Velcade, or $123 million was wasted. The highest amount of any drug.
Medicare paid $226 million for the blood platelet injection NPlate, or more than half of the drug's U.S. sales, yet 22% of that drug ($78 million) was discarded. Click HERE to see data.
- How Will Your Practice be Affected by the 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule?
In the latest ASCO In Action podcast, ASCO CEO, Dr. Clifford A. Hudis, discusses the updates that will affect oncologists in the 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule, which outlines changes to Part B reimbursement policies and the Quality Payment Program. ASCO's goal will always be "to ensure that oncologists can provide the right treatment, at the right time," says Dr. Hudis, "and we aim to help CMS implement policies that advance that goal." Subscribe to this podcast through
Apple Podcasts
or
Google Play
, and take the
ASCO Podcast Survey
to help ASCO improve its podcasts
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Affiliate Association News
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The National Oncology State Network (NOSN),
is an independent, non-profit 501(c) 6, action organization established by state oncology leaders, collaborating on emerging state issues in order to strengthen cancer care and policy across the country. Please read their year in review here.
2019 Year in Review NOSN
- Please support the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) for 2020.
With COA serving as your voice in the legislative deliberations, decision-making, and negotiations in Washington, community oncologists have been able to markedly influence public policies like never before for the better of patients and practices. This year COA faced down major reforms to the ASP reimbursement system, including proposals for ASP + 3 percent and even a flat-fee add-on; provided guidance to CMS on the Oncology Care Model (OCM) and just-announced successor, the Oncology Care First (OCF) model; advocated for changes to site parity with hospital payments and the 340B program; and so much more. Importantly, COA spent an incredible amount of resources, time, and money fighting a variety of PBM and insurer issues, launching a major media campaign, undertaking legal action, and advancing legislation, all aimed at exposing and stopping PBM abuses that hurt patients and practices.
COA 2020 Member Renewal Letter
-Save the Date! National Cancer Survivors Day® is Sunday, June 7, 2020. www.ncsd.org
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Industry News
- Astellas Oncology and Seattle Genetics announced that the FDA has approved Pacdev for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer (mUC) who have previously received a programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) or programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor and a platinum-containing chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant/adjuvant, locally advanced or metastatic setting.
- Astellas Oncology announced that the FDA has approved Xtandi for patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC).
- AstraZeneca announced that the FDA has approved Lynparza for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm) metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, as detected by an FDA-approved test, whose disease has not progressed on at least 16 weeks of a first-line platinum-based chemotherapy regimen.
- AstraZeneca
and Daiichi Sankyo announced that the FDA has approved Enhertu, a HER2-directed antibody and topoisomerase inhibitor conjugate, for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2-based regimens in the metastatic setting.
- Pfizer Oncology
announced that its bevacizumab biosimilar, Zirabev, has launched and will be available next week. Zirabev, which references Avastin, was approved in June 2019 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, recurrent or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), recurrent glioblastoma, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer.
MOASC & ANCO contribute to the information in this section
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MOASC CALENDAR
Spotlight On Hematology
February 1, 2020
City of Hope CME presents: Immunotherapy of Cancer: CAR T Cell to Checkpoint Inhibitors
March 18-21, 2020
(Berkeley, January 11, 2020)
(Stanford, April 2-3, 2020)
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The
Medical Oncology Association of Southern California
(MOASC) is a leading oncology society that advances and protects the ability of cancer patients to obtain, and the ability of the oncology physicians to provide, optimal cancer care.
The material contained in the
California Oncology Weekly
is intended as general information for MOASC members. Because diagnostic, treatment, contracting, coding, and billing decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, any such information contained in the
California Oncology Weekly
may not apply in any given situation. Members are encouraged to contact their own consultants or advisors to obtain specific advice on matters relating to contracting, coding, and billing. The information contained in
California Oncology Weekly
should not be used as a substitute for such advice.
This publication provides a summary of regulations affecting oncology and its business practices. Reading this newsletter does not substitute for understanding regulations and verifying the validity of every claim. This information is time-sensitive and is subject to change. MOASC accepts no liability for any statements or articles herein.
CPT codes are owned and trademarked by the American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.
MOASC: P.O. Box 161, Upland, CA 91785 | P (909) 985-9061 | F (909) 804-5006| www.moasc.org
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