A veteran hospital executive, Tom Weiss was drawn to his current position leading Nashville-based e+CancerCare by the opportunity to be involved in a field that impacts everyone.
“There’s not a person that I’ve met who hasn’t been affected by cancer … including my family,” said Weiss.
Founded in 2002, the company partners with physicians and hospitals to provide operational and financial support to bring cancer care to a community setting. Although primarily a radiation oncology company, a number of partnerships also include diagnostic testing, medical oncology and ancillary support services. To date, e+CancerCare (e+) operates 22 centers in nine states.
“Our mission is that we partner with communities to fight cancer,” Weiss said of their foundational principle. The CEO added ‘community’ has many different definitions to his team from the community at large to the medial community to the community of friends and family that surround and support patients.
The exact makeup of a partnership is dictated by need. In Louisiana, where e+ has several centers without medical oncologists on staff, Weiss said they reach out to the local physician community to work hand-in-hand to provide the continuum of care for patients. In Lake City, Fla., the company actually teamed up with medical oncologists as part of the business model.
“When we have a center, we utilize relationships in that community to augment the care that we give,” he explained. “In some areas, you can call it a ‘virtual’ relationship. In others, we bring it together in more of a business relationship.”
Some centers are freestanding, while others are embedded in hospitals. Physicians might be employed or might work on contract. While most centers have linear accelerators, e+ partners on CyberKnife programs with Lafayette General Medical Center in Louisiana and with Saint Francis Hospital in Memphis.
Flexibility, Weiss stressed, is key. “There’s no cookie cutter way to approach cancer,” he said. “Now there are standards of care and standards in the way you treat, and we make sure we uphold all of those; but how we go about it with our partners and within each community is unique.”
One of the areas where providers seem to universally need help is in navigating the maze of regulatory and business functions. “It’s becoming very, very complex for doctors and for hospitals,” Weiss said of managing front and back office operational issues while trying to provide the highest quality of care. “We can take that burden off,” he stated.
“The care is local. The system element of backing up that care can be centralized,” he noted. Weiss said e+ keeps overhead low by running lean operations at the Nashville headquarters utilizing staff with specific oncology operational expertise, as well as subject matter experts to support a range of clinicians. It’s also home to the company’s enterprise-wide IT functions including a centralized EMR. One of the roles the Nashville staff fulfills is ensuring partners are compliant with myriad federal regulations.
For example, Weiss noted, “We make sure that we’re compliant with ICD-10 and all the proper coding. And on top of that, we hire an outside firm to audit us, and we tell them – ‘Please act like the federal government’ – so that brings a level of security to the physicians because more and more of the audits that hospitals have been seeing are getting down into the larger groups.”
The company has enjoyed considerable growth in recent months. “We just finished two deals last year that expanded our markets. We have several deals that are pending right now that should close in the first quarter, and that doesn’t include our in-market relationships that we’re trying to expand,” Weiss outlined. He added it’s important to ask, ‘What’s next?’ to help those established collaborations reach more individuals in need of care.
One of their newest partnerships is with the University of California San Diego Health. Announced in late January, e+ will operate an outreach radiation oncology center in Chula Vista, Calif. It marks the company’s first foray into the state and first collaboration with an academic medical center.
“We really look more, not at the geography, but at the partner because not only is it a business transaction – anybody can do a business transaction – but it’s more of a partnership, particularly when you are taking care of cancer patients,” he said.
Because community plays such a central role in the company’s mission, outreach is particularly important in each of the e+ markets. In addition to supporting local nonprofits, each entity also has a nonprofit foundation that helps with everything from transportation to wigs to whatever support is necessary to help lighten a patient’s load.
In Louisiana, the staff is involved in the nonprofit Miles Perret Cancer Services organization to help fill gaps in cancer support. In other markets, color runs, 5K races, and holiday celebrations build awareness and raise funds.
“We do a lot of community outreach. That’s a big initiative for us,” said Christa Newton, vice president of Marketing & Sales. “We’re constantly looking for areas and opportunities to continue to give back to the communities.”
When it comes to forging new partnerships, Weiss said it’s a two-way street. He added it’s critical for both providers and e+ that the missions align before entering a formal arrangement. “Meshing the cultures is very important for us.”
Weiss has an extensive hospital background. Immediately prior to joining e+ in 2013, he served as a division president with LifePoint Health. He also held executive hospital positions for HCA, Triad and HealthTrust. That insight has informed business strategy.
When a meeting with potential partners concludes, Weiss said his goal is for them to walk away with three key messages: “We understand their mission. We understand that healthcare is local, and we are flexible in putting together a program and a business relationship that is unique to them.”
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