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Picking up the phone – how payors and providers can work to deliver better cancer care

Last week I hosted a webinar for the launch of HBI’s Oncology community developed in partnership with Amethyst Healthcare, a major pan-European radiotherapy group. I was joined by Clarisse Paimes, Global Head of Prevention at AXA, Olivier Cosset, CEO, Amethyst Radiotherapie, France and Justin Hely, CEO, GenesisCare Europe to explore the rising burden of cancer on working age adults and how both payor and providers can work more closely to deliver better, more holistic care. 

You can sign up to view the webinar and join HBI’s oncology community here.

Cancer diagnoses are rising, particularly among younger, working-age adults. This trend carries substantial economic consequences for individuals, employers, and society, through both direct costs and indirect effects such as absenteeism and presenteeism. This is not a criticism. Rather, it highlights the need to treat the whole person, addressing both the disease and its wider physical and psychological impact.

In AXA’s case, cancer claims across their top five operating countries account for roughly one quarter of its costs and are rising at about 8% a year. Pamies shared some eye-opening statistics to put context to the burden, a 155% increase in claims and a 234% rise in cancer spending in 2024 compared to 2017. In terms of age, 76% of claims in 2024 were made by patients between the ages of 31 and 60 compared to 67% in 2017 and with the largest increase of nearly 7% in the 31 to 40 age group.

Care providers such as Amethyst and GenesisCare (UK-based cancer care provider) must balance employer/insurer expectations while navigating new operational pressures, including the need for fast access and reduced treatment time. The cost pressure that is felt at the insurer level is equally felt at the provider level where they have to work hard to deliver services within a fixed reimbursement system.  

So how can a closer relationship be established which emphasises not only faster better care but where costs can also be managed better?

• Breaking silos: All speakers agree that the current system is too siloed and requires more dialogue, collaboration, and partnership across four key actors: the patient, doctor, insurer, provider organisation. Pamies emphasised how they need to pick up the phone and just speak to each other more often. 
• Payer-driven coordination: Cosset suggests a more logical and efficient pathway would be for the private insurer to drive care coordination after detection, directing the patient to the right center. AXA has begun to introduce case managers in the UK and Mexico which have had success in cost management and improved outcomes and showing potential to do much more.
• Strategic vs. procurement relationship: Hely advocated shifting the relationship with insurers from a price-based procurement model to a strategic partnership, in which clinicians inform payers about best practices and help address unexplained variation, enabling both sides to better understand one another.
• Prevention and early detection: Prevention through lifestyle changes and early detection have a significant impact on cost. Momentum here is building but more is needed, particularly to move to a more holistic model that supports not only the illness itself but a patient’s wider physical, mental, and nutritional health. Such an approach can help prevent cancer in the first place and reduce the risk of recurrence. This also includes rolling out screening programmes supported by robust clinical and health-economic evidence to avoid challenges such as over-diagnosis.
• The missing voice of pharma: Pharma is a significant contributor to rising costs, especially with innovative and chronic-disease-like treatments and is an important, fifth actor where silos also need to be broken down.

Discussion will continue on this topic at HBI 2026, March 23-25th in Paris where the Oncology summit will address two key questions: 1) How do you close the gap between what Patients demand and what is delivered? 2) Investing in infrastructure and the workforce to accelerate access and outcomes.  Click here to find out more and book your place. 

We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Lee Murray or call 0207 183 3779.