Join Your Voice with Ours in the Fight for Quality Cancer Care
“You have cancer.” It’s news that more than 4,800 people across the United States will hear today. And another 4,800 tomorrow. And another 4,800 each day this year.
If you’re a cancer survivor, a patient in the midst of active treatment, or are supporting a loved one dealing with cancer, you know all too well the questions, fears, and emotions that this news prompts.
You also know that as people embark on the fight of their life, they should be able to focus on getting the care they need, making themselves as strong as possible physically and emotionally, and drawing support and strength from loved ones and friends.
Too often, however, the focus instead has to shift to dealing with restrictions on what care they can receive, and where. Time that could be spent with family and friends is taken up by phone calls and paperwork, and perhaps by traveling to and from a distant location for care because of coverage restrictions. Worries about health are compounded by worries about healthcare coverage.
This just isn’t right. RCCA knows that, and so does everyone who has dealt with or is now dealing with cancer.
RCCA is committed to providing all patients with access to high-quality cancer care. In one sense, the term “access” refers to being able to receive the latest treatments and to participate in clinical trials. But in an equally important sense, “access” means being able to receive those treatments and participate in those trials at a location easily accessible to you.
It means not having to drive into a major city an hour or more away for chemotherapy, and then having to contend with the city’s rush-hour traffic to get home. It means enrolling in a clinical trial of a promising new therapy that is offered at a care clinic 15 minutes from your home. And perhaps most of all, it means receiving cutting-edge cancer care at a clinic in your hometown or a neighboring community where you and your family are known by face and name to everyone from the receptionist and office manager to the physician and your nurses.
RCCA is proud to offer all of its patients access to high-quality cancer care provided in a convenient setting marked by compassion for and attention to you.
But beyond providing such care at our own 25 locations in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Washington, DC area, RCCA is also part of a larger effort to ensure that people across America have access to excellent care in their own communities.
Toward this end, we are a proud and very active member of the Community Oncology Alliance Patient Advocacy Network, or CPAN.
CPAN was created in recognition of the vital role patients should play in advocating for access to local affordable care for all cancer patients. CPAN complements the work of the Community Oncology Alliance, or COA, which has established a record of unprecedented success in mobilizing community oncology to raise awareness of the issues facing cancer care delivery and to become politically active.
Truly inclusive on all levels, CPAN is a non-cancer-type specific national network representing all members of the cancer community. CPAN members include patients in active treatment, cancer survivors, professional caregivers, family members, medical and oncology professionals, and members of the general community. Among other activities, CPAN brings attention to the impact of Medicare legislative policies on cancer patients, specifically the issues affecting local cancer centers.
One of the worst “side effects” of having cancer is the sense of being alone, somehow separated from those around you who don’t have the diagnosis that you have received.
At RCCA, we make sure that none of our patients are alone in their fight against cancer. We’re with you every step of the way.
Every patient, everywhere in America, deserves to have that same sense that others are with them, providing support and solidarity. That’s why we urge you to become involved with CPAN and join them and RCCA in the effort to fight for high-quality, convenient cancer care for every patient!
Whether it’s writing a letter to a lawmaker, attending a meeting, or using your social media platform to share news on an important policy, the time you devote to this effort will enable people with cancer to devote more of their time to what matters most – winning the fight of their life!
For more information on CPAN and what you can do, please visit https://coaadvocacy.org/.
Please also check this page periodically for updates on activities and issues in our area.
And thank you for joining your voice with ours in the fight for quality cancer care.