COA 2026: Community Oncology Proven to Deliver High-Quality Cancer Care

At this year’s Community Oncology Conference, new early-phase data from the Community Oncology Alliance’s Quality of Care Study have added to a growing body of evidence challenging long-standing assumptions about where patients receive the highest-quality cancer care.

The study’s main findings show that patients treated in community oncology settings achieve outcomes that are comparable to—or better than—national benchmark populations treated in hospital-based systems.¹ Importantly, these outcomes were achieved at a lower overall cost of care, strengthening the argument that community oncology can deliver both clinical effectiveness and value.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Diana Verrilli, MS, senior vice president and general manager at Navista, describes the release of the findings as long overdue. She emphasizes that the findings confirm what community oncologists have long believed in practice: that high-quality cancer care can be delivered safely and effectively close to home, without compromising outcomes.

A key theme in her remarks is the importance of access and patient experience. She stresses that receiving care locally allows patients to remain near their support systems during treatment, which is especially meaningful throughout the cancer journey, and argues that the equivalence in outcomes makes this option even more compelling.

On policy implications, Verrilli calls for renewed attention to site-of-care payment disparities, arguing that reimbursement differences between community and hospital settings are no longer justified given equivalent or superior outcomes. She urges policymakers to address these long-standing inequities.

Finally, she emphasizes that future value-based care models must incorporate all care settings, increase health system engagement, and better integrate patient-reported outcomes, affordability, and survivorship. She also highlights the need for sustained public and private investment to support large-scale research that continues to evaluate and improve oncology care delivery.

REFERENCES

1. Quality of Care. Community Oncology Alliance. April 28, 2026. Accessed April 28, 2026. https://tinyurl.com/azv79ybz