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Caregivers are essential to cancer outcomes and access to newer therapies, but it is unclear whether resources will follow the evidence, according to husband and wife Brian Koffman, MDCM, and Patty Koffman, cofounders of the CLL Society. In this episode, recorded at the Patient-Centered Oncology Care conference, the couple reflect on the “No Caregiver, No Cure” panel that Patty participated in. They discuss research tying caregiver well-being to patient outcomes, the growing reliance on caregivers as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy and bispecific antibodies move to the outpatient setting, and what pharma could do to support caregivers. Other resources: 1. Caffrey M. The CAR T caregiver: “never in the limelight,” but critical to access. Am J Manag Care. 2026;32(Spec 5):SP180-SP182. 2. Yang D, Troy JD, Branchaud B, Herring KW, El-Jawahri A, LeBlanc TW. "Longitudinal associations between patient and caregiver quality of life following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation." J Clin Oncol.2026;44(16_suppl):12087. doi:10.1200/jco.2026.44.16_suppl.12087 3. Schwartz AJ, Riedel RF, LeBlanc TW, et al. The experiences of older caregivers of cancer patients following hospital discharge. Support Care Cancer. 2019;27(2):609-616. doi:10.1007/s00520-018-4355-2

PCOC Recap: Seven Leaders Define Patient-Centered Oncology Care by Managed Care Cast

Crystal Clear: What Availity's Founding Story Teaches About Price Transparency by Managed Care Cast

Host Carol Skenes, chief of staff at Turquoise, previews Crystal Clear With Carol Skenes, a new podcast about making health care more transparent and easier to navigate. She explains why opaque payment processes leave patients without answers on cost. She also outlines what a simpler, waste-free transaction could look like and who is working toward it. Follow for season 1.

Patients Open to Lower-Cost Weight Maintenance to Expand GLP-1 Access by Managed Care Cast

In part 2 of this conversation recorded at Patient-Centered Oncology Care 2026 in Nashville, Melody Chang, vice president of pharmacy operations at American Oncology Network (AON), talks with 2 AON colleagues. Susan Sabo Wagner, vice president of clinical innovation, explains why financial toxicity should be managed as a clinical toxicity. She also covers how electronic patient-reported outcomes can support patients on CAR T-cell and bispecific therapies between visits, and how AON is rolling out behavioral health partnerships, distress screening, and area deprivation index data across its practices. Alti Rahman, chief strategy and innovation officer, describes how AON is now supplying quality measures to payers instead of receiving them, and previews a closing panel on building trust among payers, providers, and patients through 2030. Both share what stood out most at the meeting, from patient access to keeping pace with fast-moving therapies.

For years, first-relapse myeloma regimens have delivered just 1 to 2 years of progression-free survival and immunomodulatory drugs were dosed to the maximum tolerated dose. Iberdomide, the first CELMoD approved by the FDA and the first myeloma approval based on minimal residual disease negative status, changes this narrative. In this episode, we speak with Sagar Lonial, MD, FACP, FASCO, professor and chair of the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, chief medical officer at Winship Cancer Institute, and lead investigator of the phase 3 EXCALIBER trial. Lonial breaks down the new EXCALIBER data he presented at IMS 2026, including MRD negativity rates for the study and comparator arms; how dosing was chosen for optimal fit rather than force; and and why MRD as an end point has potential to get new therapeutics to patients faster.

On this episode, AJMC spoke with Jaspreet Loyal, MD, about vitamin K refusals, which many clinicians believe may be a downstream effect of broader vaccine hesitancy.

Opaque benchmarks, payment lags of 12 to 18 months, and rules that changed mid-model led American Oncology Network (AON) to exit the Enhancing Oncology Model (EOM), according to AON Chief Medical Officer Stephen "Fred" Divers, MD. In this inaugural episode of The Business of Value, Divers tells host Lalan Wilfong, MD, chief medical officer of Navista, how 505(b)(2) drugs complicated practice finances, why retrospective data limited the ability to improve, and why other payers did not follow Medicare's lead. He also explains how AON is pursuing other value-based arrangements built on real-time data and what practices should know before joining similar models.

Community oncology practices can close the gap between innovation and implementation by building patient feedback into real-time clinical pathways, using AI to speed up physician decision-making, and better supporting caregivers of patients on CAR T and bispecific therapies, according to leaders from the American Oncology Network (AON). In the first of 2 podcasts from Patient-Centered Oncology Care 2026, Melody Chang, RPh, MBA, BCOP, is joined by Fred Divers, MD; Puneeth Indurlal, MD; and Brooke Peters, PharmD. They recap their PCOC panels and explain how the discussions connect to AON's work on clinical trials, rural access, and caregiver education.

This week's Managed Care Cast episode features a conversation between The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) and Grace Mackleby, PhD, a research scientist at the USC Schaeffer Center, about her study, "Plan Switching Among Medicare Advantage Enrollees Dually Eligible for Medicaid," published in the September 2026 issue of AJMC. The study examined how often beneficiaries switched from one Medicare Advantage (MA) plan to another or from MA to traditional Medicare (TM). It compared enrollees dually eligible for Medicaid with those eligible for Medicare only. Mackleby explained that dually eligible beneficiaries account for about one-fifth of the Medicare population and tend to have more chronic conditions, higher costs, and greater needs; they are also subject to different rules on when they can switch plans. Mackleby and coauthors Angela Liu, PhD, and Erin Trish, PhD, used administrative Medicare enrollment data to track switching from 2016 to 2022. She highlighted 3 main results. First, about 22% of fully dually eligible enrollees switched MA plans in 2022, up from about 12% in 2016. Second, these enrollees were roughly 6 times more likely to switch to another MA plan than TM. Third, dually eligible beneficiaries overall switched MA plans more often than those eligible for Medicare only. The study did not examine causes, but Mackleby pointed to 2 likely drivers: the growing number of available MA plans and the strong competition among insurers, which have heavily marketed supplemental benefits such as flex cards and dental coverage. For non–dually eligible beneficiaries, she added, it is difficult in most states to obtain Medigap coverage after enrolling in MA, which makes returning to TM financially unappealing. Switching also varied by race and ethnicity. Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska Native fully dually eligible enrollees switched MA plans more often than non-Hispanic White enrollees. Mackleby said geography may play a role. However, higher switching could also indicate lower satisfaction with available plans, which warrants further study, she noted. Looking ahead, Mackleby emphasized the need to understand whether switching helps or harms beneficiaries, including its effects on access to care and cost sharing. She also called for research on how switching shapes market performance. "I think looking at it from a beneficiary welfare perspective is going to be really important, and then also looking at it from a market perspective is going to be important too," Mackleby concluded.

On this episode, I spoke with Jonathan Kimmelman, PhD, professor of biomedical ethics and associate member of the Department of Experimental Medicine at McGill University, about the ethical concerns surrounding Kalshi as it relates to clinical trial outcomes and FDA approvals.

During Suicide Prevention Month, UPMC experts discuss how lived experience, peer support, and connection strengthen suicide prevention.

September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month, and to mark it, we have a special Director's Cut episode of Managed Care Cast. My name is Maggie Shaw, lead editor at AJMC, and my guest today is Surbhi Sidana, MD, associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, where she leads the Myeloma Disease Focused Group and serves as associate director for clinical research in the BMT and Cell Therapy Division. We talk about her path into myeloma research, the field's shift from a once-fatal diagnosis to real conversations about cure, the barriers patients face accessing CAR T-cell therapy, and her advice for the next generation of hematologists.

Health-system pharmacy is entering a decade of change, and Future-Proofing Pharmacy is built to keep asking what that future should look like. In this debut episode, host Mark Makhinson, PharmD, senior director of outpatient and specialty pharmacy at Mount Sinai Health System, introduces the podcast's mission: exploring how pharmacy leaders can build organizations that are clinically meaningful, scalable, and ready to adapt, rather than simply reacting to financial pressure, workforce shifts, and drug shortages as they arise. Makhinson lays out the questions the series will return to throughout its run, including what a health system pharmacy enterprise looks like in 2035, where artificial intelligence can meaningfully help, and where human judgment should remain central. Episode 1 kicks off with Nilesh Desai, PharmD, chief pharmacy officer at University of Miami Health System, who shares the pharmacy enterprise he would build from scratch in 2035 and the lessons that shaped his thinking during a major pharmacy transformation at Baptist Health, including the development of a consolidated pharmacy service center.