With new cancer fighting drugs emerging rapidly on the market, employers are faced with a new dilemma: How can they best support employees who have cancer while still managing the costs of their health plan? The new drugs offer better treatment outcomes, but the drugs themselves can be extremely costly, putting pressure on attempts to better manage plan expenses.

The Northeast Business Group on Health (NEBGH) devoted considerable resources in 2015 to study how employers with self-insured plans approach cancer treatment. Following workshops, interviews with plan managers, and a survey of about 20 self-insured employers, NEBGH said that employers clearly want individuals with cancer to have high quality treatment, but they have yet to develop a clear strategy for managing the cost of that treatment.

The small sample survey found that the majority of employers don’t have such products as a cancer-care buy-up package, which can help contain the often unpredictable costs of cancer treatment. Fewer than half have aligned their plan with a specific oncology network that is highly rated, although more than half include the services of an oncology center of excellence in their plan.