Casey Chollet-Lipscomb, MD: My name is Casey Chollet-Lipscomb. I'm a radiation oncologist by training, and I practice with Tennessee Oncology in Nashville.
OBR: Can you tell us about your new role and what your goals are?
Dr. Chollet-Lipscomb: For the last six years, I've been the managing partner for radiation oncology at Tennessee Oncology. It's been a wonderful opportunity to grow that service line. Now, I am moving into the [role of] executive vice president of physician services. This is a new role that's been created concentrating on growth, development, and strategy for our practice. Where previously I've been with radiation oncology, now I'm going to be looking at opportunities across all our service lines. That [not only] impacts our clinical services for radiation oncology but also medical oncology growth, imaging, looking at new cellular therapies, and possibly bringing on new service lines, like surgery. Lots of opportunities for growth, and I'm very excited.
OBR: What can community practices do to start a cellular therapy program?
Dr. Chollet-Lipscomb: Moving into the cellular therapy CAR-T realm in community practice can be daunting. It is expensive. You have to be incredibly astute in partnering with different payers and getting the contracts in place. You're looking at upfront costs can be $400,000–$500,000. You want to make sure that these things get paid for and that you have the equipment and staff training in place to emphasize safety, quality, and effectiveness. We've been very lucky to have good partners in our community with Tennessee Oncology, and we have resources through OneOncology as well, which has been very supportive. It's an amazing task [to be] growing [your] program over the years. I would say slow and steady wins the race.
OBR: How do you plan to continue to deliver high-quality care?
Dr. Chollet-Lipscomb: The leaders of Tennessee Oncology have always been open to evolution and to growth. Again, bringing on new service lines, talking to surgeons to figure out how we can partner with them in the community and how we can partner with our local hospitals. Our goal is always to bring care to the patient, not to make patients travel. As long as we keep a focus on that, we continue a winning strategy.
OBR: What innovative practices are you most excited about?
Dr. Chollet-Lipscomb: There are lots of opportunities. To give you a little bit of background about myself, I have specialized in breast and gynecologic cancers. Seeing the people we've been able to bring on from academics coming into the community locally, to see the growth of our research trials through the Greco-Hainsworth Centers for Research – there is so much potential that I'm excited about. We have the opportunity to build a world-class research program over the next few years. In my realm of breast and gynecologic [cancers], I'm looking forward to those partnerships.
OBR: What sessions from the COA conference stood out to you?
Dr. Chollet-Lipscomb: This is the first COA [conference] that I've ever been to. Coming from a radiation oncology background, there's a lot of new stuff here that I haven't been exposed to before. My favorite session was "Hospitals: Friend or Foe." I think it was the second session of yesterday. We had practices from across the country talking about how they manage to have good relationships with hospitals where they've seen some setbacks and challenges. It was a really candid conversation, and I thought it very productive.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
