NEW YORK CANCER AND BLOOD SPECIALISTS HAS CONGRESSMAN ANDREW R. GARBARINO (R-NY-02) “SIT IN MY CHAIR”

The majority of Americans fighting cancer receive treatment in a community oncology clinic. Since 2008, more than 1,700 community oncology practices have closed, been acquired by hospitals, undergone mergers, or are struggling financially to compete. As local cancer clinics close, patients are forced to travel farther for treatment, resulting in less convenient and more costly cancer care.

Today, community cancer clinics around the country face threats from pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that routinely delay or deny patients access to necessary cancer drugs. PBMs artificially inflate drug prices, enforce outdated care models, and ultimately degrade cancer care delivery.

On Thursday, August 18th, New York Cancer & Blood Specialists (NYCBS) hosted Representative Andrew R. Garbarino in a “Sit in My Chair” event in our Babylon office.  Congressman Garbarino represents New York’s second district spanning the South Shore of Long Island from Seaford to Sayville.  

The Community Oncology Alliance has been sponsoring this event format for years.  The Representative comes to the office and goes through a cancer patient's experience - checks in at the front desk, waits in the waiting room, roomed by the medical assistant, talks to the doctor about disease treatment and side effects, and then goes back to the chemo room.  It was as realistic as we could make it (minus the toxic medications). 

This type of event can profoundly affect legislators. Dr. David Eagle was the physician attending to Congressman Garbarino. Dr. Eagle diagnosed Congressman Garbarino (for the event) with Stage III Diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and informed him that the treatment plan would include six cycles of R-CHOP, a combination of five drugs that work together to target and kill cancer cells. 

They discussed rationale, chances for cure, drugs, side effects, and about second line salvage CAR-T. The congressman asked why we could not do that first line - exactly the type of question we get from real patients. He was clearly in the moment and experiencing what our patients go through. (As an oncologist, pretend cancer is much easier to treat than actual cancer).

Huge congratulations to the whole NYCBS team for participating - particularly Brittany Kaliscik, our director of patient experience who arranged everything and Dr. David Eagle!  It was very well done, well received, and highly effective. Representative Garbarino could not have been more kind and gracious from beginning to end. 

As a cancer team, we live in our world everyday, but we forget what a mystery it is to others.   Furthermore, congressional leaders are inundated with everyone and everything - education, defense, foreign affairs etc. So getting our patients’ experience front and center is a major win!