Peter Bach

Peter B. Bach
A headshot of Bach
Born 1964 (age 51–52)
Education Harvard University
University of Minnesota
University of Chicago

Medical career

Profession Physician, Health Policy Analyst, Writer
Institutions Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Research Healthcare Policy, Epidemiology

Peter B. Bach is a physician, epidemiologist, and writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where he is Director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes.[1] His research focuses on healthcare policy, particularly as it relates to Medicare, racial disparities in cancer care quality, and lung cancer. Along with his scientific writings he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and other newspapers.

Career and education

Dr. Bach chronicled his wife Ruth’s treatment for early breast cancer in a series of articles for the New York Times, and then wrote about her death from the disease in a poignant piece for New York Magazine titled: “The Day I Started Lying to Ruth”, an article that was ultimately syndicated to numerous other outlets including the Times of London and Reader’s Digest. Dr. Bach discussed the article on the Leonard Lopate show.

In 2012, Dr. Bach co-authored an opinion piece in the New York Times outlining Memorial Sloan Kettering’s decision not to offer a new cancer drug, Zaltrap, to its patients due the phenomenally expensive price tag attached, $11,063 on average for a month of treatment. At the time, the price for Zaltrap was more than twice as high than the regularly-prescribed cancer drug already being used by the hospital to treat colorectal cancer and just as effective. The New York Times piece by Dr. Bach led to an exhaustive reporting piece by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes, highlighting the rising cost of cancer drugs and the lack of market, political and regulatory forces which allowed the pharmaceutical industry to impose unrestricted drug prices not tied to any value priced system.

In 2015, Dr. Bach released DrugAbacus, the first ever interactive tool to help determine the price of a cancer drug based on its value compared with the price assigned by the pharmaceutical company. The online DrugAbacus pricing tool is the only major initiative of its kind in the U.S. focusing exclusively on the pricing of medicines. Additionally, Dr. Bach co-authored an important paper published in the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Payer and Policy Maker Steps to Support Value-Based Pricing for Drugs,“ which provided the next steps for value based drug pricing approaches in the United States.

With his collaborators, he showed that black Medicare beneficiaries with lung cancer do not receive as high quality care as white patients, and that the aptitude and resources of primary care physicians who treat blacks patients are inferior, when compared to primary care physicians who primarily treat white patients.[2][3][4] A paper in 2007 demonstrated that care in Medicare is highly fragmented, with the average beneficiary seeing multiple primary care physicians and specialists.[5] He has led efforts to develop lung cancer screening guidelines by several major organizations and also developed one of the first lung cancer risk prediction models.[6][7][8][9] He has proposed a number of strategies by which Medicare could link payment level to the value of healthcare delivered.[10][11]

His lay press contributions have included op-eds on topics such as medical school tuition funding,[12] setting physician reimbursement based on market forces,[13] and why cancer screening recommendations are often not followed.[14] An oped he wrote with colleagues about a cancer drug being too expensive led the company to halve the price.[15][16]

Bach earned a bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature from Harvard University (1986), a MD from the University of Minnesota (1992) and a Masters of Arts in Public Policy (1997) from the University of Chicago. He obtained his internal medicine training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Other positions

References

  1. ↑ Center for Health Policy and Outcomes Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 2012. (Accessed 11/9/2012)
  2. ↑ Bach PB, Cramer LD, Warren JL, Begg CB (1999). "Racial differences in the treatment of early-stage lung cancer". The New England Journal of Medicine 341 (16): 1198–205. doi:10.1056/NEJM199910143411606. PMID 10519898.
  3. ↑ Bach PB, Pham HH, Schrag D, Tate RC, Hargraves JL (2004). "Primary care physicians who treat blacks and whites". The New England Journal of Medicine 351 (6): 575–84. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa040609. PMID 15295050.
  4. ↑ Bach PB, Schrag D, Brawley OW, Galaznik A, Yakren S, Begg CB (2002). "Survival of blacks and whites after a cancer diagnosis". JAMA 287 (16): 2106–13. doi:10.1001/jama.287.16.2106. PMID 11966385.
  5. ↑ Pham HH, Schrag D, O'Malley AS, Wu B, Bach PB (2007). "Care patterns in Medicare and their implications for pay for performance". The New England Journal of Medicine 356 (11): 1130–9. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa063979. PMID 17360991.
  6. ↑ Bach PB, Kattan MW, Thornquist MD, Kris MG, Tate RC, Barnett MJ, Hsieh LJ, Begg CB (2003). "Variations in lung cancer risk among smokers". Journal of the National Cancer Institute 95 (6): 470–8. doi:10.1093/jnci/95.6.470. PMID 12644540.
  7. ↑ Bach PB, Mirkin JN, Oliver TK, Azzoli CG, Berry DA, Brawley OW, Byers T, Colditz GA, et al. (2012). "Benefits and harms of CT screening for lung cancer: A systematic review". JAMA 307 (22): 2418–29. doi:10.1001/jama.2012.5521. PMC 3709596. PMID 22610500.
  8. ↑ Bach PB, Niewoehner DE, Black WC, American College of Chest Physicians (2003). "Screening for lung cancer: The guidelines". Chest 123 (1 Suppl): 83S–88S. doi:10.1378/chest.123.1_suppl.83s. PMID 12527567.
  9. ↑ Bach PB, Silvestri GA, Hanger M, Jett JR, American College of Chest Physicians (2007). "Screening for lung cancer: ACCP evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (2nd edition)". Chest 132 (3 Suppl): 69S–77S. doi:10.1378/chest.07-1349. PMID 17873161.
  10. ↑ Bach PB, Mirkin JN, Luke JJ (2011). "Episode-based payment for cancer care: A proposed pilot for Medicare". Health Affairs (Project Hope) 30 (3): 500–9. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0752. PMID 21383369.
  11. ↑ Pearson SD, Bach PB (2010). "How Medicare could use comparative effectiveness research in deciding on new coverage and reimbursement". Health Affairs (Project Hope) 29 (10): 1796–804. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0623. PMID 20921478.
  12. ↑ Peter B. Bach, "Why Medical School Should Be Free", The New York Times, 5/28/2011 (accessed 11/9/2012)
  13. ↑ Peter B. Bach, "Medicare, Start the Bidding", The New York Times, 6/3/2009. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  14. ↑ Peter B. Bach, "The Trouble With 'Doctor Knows Best'", The New York Times, 6/4/2012. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  15. ↑ Peter B. Bach, "In Cancer Care, Cost Matters", The New York Times, 10/14/2012 (accessed 11/30/2012)
  16. ↑ Andrew Pollack, "Sanofi Halves Price of Cancer Drug After Sloan-Kettering Rejection", The New York Times, 11/8/2012 (accessed 11/30/2012)
  17. ↑ CMS Seeks Methods to Appropriately Reimburse High-Quality Cancer Care Oncology NEWS International, Vol. 15 No. 2, 2/1/2006. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  18. ↑ National Cancer Policy Forum Institute of Medicine updated 9/20/2012. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  19. ↑ Report to the President: Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for Americans PCAST, pg. 7, December, 2010. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  20. ↑ Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending and Promotion of High-Value Care Institute of Medicine updated 8/16/2012. (accessed 11/9/2012)
  21. ↑ Peter Bach World Economic Forum (accessed 11/9/2012)

External links

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