Managed Care Cast

Caregiving should be a priority for the next Congress, and 2 bills aim to ease the financial and logistical strain on families, said Sen Andy Kim (D, New Jersey).

Kim, who cares for his father with Alzheimer disease, said the Multi-Generational Caregiving Data Act would measure how many Americans provide care, while the Medicare at Home Act would offer up to about 20 hours of weekly at-home services through Medicare. He said families often must exhaust their savings to qualify for Medicaid, which can lead to costlier institutional care.

Recorded the day after the 2026 midterm elections, the conversation also covers how the Medicare at Home Act could support patients receiving outpatient cell therapies, Kim’s plans to push on Medicaid funding during the lame duck session, and the stories he has heard from caregivers across the country.

Nilesh Desai, MBA, RPh, joins Dr. Makhinson in a heated discussion on automation, AI, and building the health-system pharmacy enterprise of 2035.

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

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