Hi -

At one time, I worked at a hospital where the cancer conferences made
themselves pretty much self-supporting. This was ten years ago, so
many, many things have changed, but it pretty much worked this way:

The hospital was near Boston and brought in a medical oncologist and
a radiation oncologist from a major teaching hospital. Each patient
case was charged between $75 and $150 (don't quote me on that; not
only are the figures ten years old, so is my memory!!!)and as long as
I had at least three cases scheduled, the cost of the two physicians
coming up to the hospital was covered. So these patients from a
community hospital got a multi-disciplinary consultation without
having to search for specialists, trek into Boston, leave the docs
they knew and trusted, etc. The physicians on staff also got a
weekly update current trends in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

I think the conferences were billed to the individual patients as
physician consultations and they were covered by most insurances.

I always thought it was a brilliant idea (the more experienced I get,
the more I appreciate it)since I've been told on occasion (NOT by
anyone at that hospital, I might add!) that since cancer programs
don't generate income, there was no reason why they should have
anything but the bare minimum in resources allocated to them.

Eileen