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.