New Cancer Patients Struggle to Land Appointments With Oncologists

How sad is this? You hear you have cancer and you can’t even talk to an ‘expert’.  Not sure if this is more of a rural issue but I can only imagine how scary and heartbreaking this is for those families.

For Kate-Madonna Hindes, the only thing more terrifying than having to see an oncologist was the nightmare of landing an appointment. In the two weeks after a routine pap smear showed signs of cervical cancer, Hindes, who is 29 and has already survived cervical cancer once, called nine different cancer centers and specialists. And most of the time, she couldn’t even get a live person on the phone.

“I’ve just heard I might have cancer again, and now it’s in my hands to get hold of somebody,” Hindes said, explaining the frustration of leaving messages, then waiting for a reply. “It’s extremely stressful.”

Eventually, two of the nine centers agreed to bring Hindes in for an initial visit — a dismal 22 percent success rate. And her struggle is typical. According to a study presented Saturday at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, only 22 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients with private insurance land a first appointment with an oncologist. That number dropped to 17 percent for patients on Medicaid.