77MD, 80R–internal medicine
Barbara McAneny’s dedication to health advocacy is the cornerstone of her career. It started when a colleague heard her in the doctors’ lounge talking about a young patient whom she had just diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer caused by smoking.
“What is wrong with us as a society when we are selling and advertising a product that, when used according to the package directions, kills you?” McAneny thought.
The physician to whom she was venting happened to be the president of the state medical society at the time. If she wanted to be a part of the solution, he said, she could join a committee of doctors working on clean indoor air legislation for New Mexico. The rest is history.
“I was hooked,” McAneny says. “It was a wealth of information, expertise, and activism. It showed me that when doctors work together for the good of patients, we can accomplish some pretty remarkable things.”
Elected president of the American Medical Association in 2017, McAneny focused her tenure on empowering patients and providers alike as she worked to prevent large health corporation mergers. The consolidation of the market, she says, disempowers patients and providers alike while driving up health care costs.
As an oncologist, McAneny values the deep relationships she forms with patients and strives to understand their goals, hopes, and fears in addition to their medical needs. True to those principles, she created the New Mexico Cancer Center (NMCC) and its nonprofit foundation, focused on lifting the burden of non-medical expenses for underserved patients undergoing treatment for serious illness.
“It occurred to me as an oncologist that whenever I had to put someone in the hospital, when they were released, their quality of life was never as good as when they went in,” she says. “How can I intervene so the patient doesn’t get so sick they have to be in the hospital?”
With a $19.5 million Health Care Innovation Award from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, McAneny pioneered the Community Oncology Medical Home model, often known as COME HOME. The model aims to help oncology practices create efficiencies in health care delivery that reduce unnecessary hospitalizations.
“Then we set up our practice so we could do 15 same-day visits every day,” she says. “I discovered that my hospitalization rate was dropping.”
The award was aimed at funding new strategies to improve care and save money, but to McAneny, the economic relief it provided her patients was paramount.
“The lesser cost to insurance companies was a byproduct,” she says. “The main thing we were trying to do was improve the lives of cancer patients while they're going through therapy. Patients are going bankrupt out there, and so we wanted to save them money from the copays of those hospitalizations—and save their family members the lost work hours from sitting in a hospital room.”
Her company, Innovative Oncology Business Solutions, has developed the COME HOME model into a system that could be used by other oncology practices. Patients who call the practice speak with a nurse who helps to determine if the health complaint is serious enough to require hospitalization or if it can be easily and safely managed at home or with a same-day office visit. The model is now being considered for adoption by approximately 30 independent practices across the country, forming the ONCare Alliance.
Through all her leadership roles, she has been a champion for affordable, accessible health care for all.