ProCure launches its proton therapy center in Oklahoma City
Dusty Somers, Business Writer
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Published: July 9, 2009
Oklahomans seeking cancer treatment Wednesday got another option with the opening of the $120 million ProCure Proton Therapy Center at 5901 W Memorial Road in Oklahoma City.
ProCure Proton Therapy Center, 5901 W Memorial Road, celebrated its grand opening Wednesday. PHOTO BY JACONNA AGUIRRE, THE OKLAHOMAN
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ABOUT THE CENTER
→Oklahoma City’s ProCure center was entirely privately financed, and will be responsible for about 100 permanent jobs, including radiation therapists, nurses and administrative staff.
→Costs for treatment range from $30,000 to $40,000 for shorter courses of treatment up to $80,000 for longer courses, medical director Dr. William Goad said. Reimbursement rates through Medicare are comparable with similar procedures, he said.
In fact, executives with
ProCure Treatment Centers Inc. believe the facility will attract patients from across the country. Up to 1,500 patients a year will be accepted into the center for treatment of head, neck, brain, central nervous system and prostate cancers.
The new ProCure center puts the state in the same class medically as others that can provide the "gold standard” for radiation therapy, said
Hadley Ford, ProCure CEO.
"From a medical perspective, it really puts Oklahoma City on the map,” he said.
It is only the sixth proton therapy center in the country, giving patients with cancerous tumors a new kind of radiation option.
Unlike traditional X-ray radiation, proton therapy uses an external beam that can precisely target solid tumors without causing damage to surrounding healthy tissue, said Hadley Ford, chief executive of ProCure.
"You’re able to treat to the specific points of the body at very high energy deposition levels, and not damage any tissue after the tumor,” Ford said. "If you have a tumor that’s up against a critical organ, you can treat right to the edge of the tumor, and not harm the critical organ.”
Partnering with ProCure are Radiation Medicine Associates, a radiation oncology practice that will provide clinical care, and
Integris Health, which will offer treatment for patients’ ongoing medical needs.
Integris’ new
Cancer Institute of Oklahoma is being built adjacent to the 60,000-square-foot ProCure center, and is scheduled to open in October, said
Stanley Hupfeld, Integris CEO.
The ProCure facility contains four treatment rooms, one of which is currently open.
Dr. William Goad, medical director for ProCure, said the center plans to open another room every three months. The center is expected to be fully operational by next spring, he said.
Stewart Taylor, an Oklahoma City resident who had proton therapy for prostate cancer five years ago at a center in
California, said during his 2½ months of treatment, he was able to maintain a normal quality of life, even taking golf lessons.
"I talk to patients who had other treatments and are dealing with side effects every day of their lives and I’m very grateful I had the chance to have proton therapy,” he said. "I’m one of the lucky ones. I can go for days without even thinking about having had cancer.”
Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon, who invested about $70 million to help bring the center to Oklahoma City and is on ProCure’s board, said
Oklahoma residents won’t have to go too far to receive the same kind of treatment.
"For far too long, cancer patients in Oklahoma have had to travel to receive first-class radiation therapy from protons,” McClendon said.
ProCure’s Oklahoma City center is the first for
Indiana-based
ProCure Treatment Centers. The company is building and developing other centers in
Illinois,
Michigan and
Florida, and Oklahoma has provided a template for how the ProCure does business, Ford said.
"Every area of the country we go into, we actually use Oklahoma and the environment in which we found ourselves as the sort of measuring stick for whether we’re going to like that market or not,” Ford said.
"I’ve been struck by the can-do attitude of the city and the region.”
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No one limited or capitated the use of antibiotics, it was deemed good business to figure out how to use the right level of drug first instead of going to the latest greatest- and that is how all medical treatment should be getting done.
There would seem to be a bit of a ethical bind in owning all corners of the process- I have gotten a fair crash education in the Diagnisis Related Grouping- drg end of helth care in the last six years. I truely hope healthcare is about getting the right care done in the right order and not instead leaning towards the maximization of profts-
I am not knocking this treatment people, only saying it is one the jury is out on as to if it is any better than treatments half the price. I am not trashing the facility at all.
The article says 1500 patients a year, each for potentially the 100,000 we are all mentioning in a lot of zeros... don't we all deserve to know this process is statictically better for that amount? Why not allow, do, encourage ongoing evaluation? In my business if I don't always look for a better way to do something for the same or less, I stand to not stay in business- so we use continuious process improvement- we just don't take it on faith what we do is better, but track it.
Chris in Norman
What if there was a less expensive treatment that actually works better, or if some early detection would have cut the cost, or it prevenative actions on my part could have reduced that total dollar outlay?
I don't call that capitation, I would call it smart use of the money to get a better outcome.
Again, I am not saying deny the treatment, I would suggest showing it really does work better than exsisting treatments. Don't go proton right off if the results are no better, use older technologies that have proven results- first, then proton if it fits.
I am very wary of the integrated medical approach for that reason- if the doctor owns the hospital, the lab, the diagnostic equipment and the treatment equipment will they order the least expensive test or the most?
I too do have a extremelly personal interest. You are not alone in your situation, I truely wish you the very best with your prognosis. How are you doing? I am really being a co-cancer patent in asking you- because I agree with you, unless one has truely lived through this on a personal level either themselves or with a closely loved one the emotional expernce cannot be understood.
My wife died five years ago from a untreatable brain tumor- my father of a carcinoid tumor about six years ago. Personally I would not wish the experence on anyone!
Kristen you are ablsolutely correct, my two rounds of chemo were pretty costly.
I would not ever say anything like "a treatment cost too much". As consumers we all seem to have faith that the research and studies have been done to discern that a particular treatment really works or is the "best". That is part of the science aspect of medicine- and it needs to be done on all forms of treatment.
The point of the NYT article is that for prostate cancer treatments, the studies have not been done in our country very well, in a coordinated fashion that would show statistically relevant coorelations between treatments and long term results.
From my own exprences I know some types of conditions have had good very long term studies done on them, and it helps all of us in the end. While some of the results of such studies might seem to be common sense don't discount the value of the knowledge. Heart Bypass surgery was around for then years before the studies documented the relationship of diet to sucess of the surgery. Now we all take for granted that after a bypass changes in diet are in order- heck BEFORE the bypass diet changes might help reduce the chance of needing the surgery.
What it turns out as missing is that type of overarching study of treatments and effectivness.
I would never ever deny persons hope of cures- it would be nice to know exactly what the odds of sucess might be for different types of treatment though... and for the focused proton technology there is not yet such evidence.
To me at least there then is a missing link here and it can be changed without a huge restructuring of healthcare- good ongoing studies of the effectivness of treatments is a win situation for everyone, not a loss. If that leads to the discovery that some older, and perhpas cheaper treatments are better then great, if it show extremelly expensive newer technology is better than it justifies the cost to everyone involved.
Capitation is occuring now in health insurance, your health insurance depending on who runs it may or may not cover some procedures- my second opinion at M.D. Anderson was covered by my insurance, but my wifes was not, I just finished paying for the consult last year. The medical establishment was willing to keep providing her chemotherapy even when the tumor in her brain had grown to the point of imparing speech, cordination, and thought. She finally called it quits, and died less than three weeks later. To this day I wrestle with the experence, I don't honestly know if it helped extend her life in anyway and how that balance against the hope it might have provided her.
I am all for the hope of treatments, but at the same time we need to be able to have enough information to see which ones are performing best for the vast and varied types of health issues out there.
I am not a blinded fan-boy of the NYT, they publish somethings I don't agree with at all. They are one of the last great international new organizations though. While I on occasion try to wade though Scientific American, or the JAMA, they are over my head.
I am not threatened by reading an opposing view to my own. Questioning my own value system makes me stronger in my convictions not weaker, so I will continue to read the NYT or the Wall Street Journal, or the Arkansas Democrat, of what ever is out there that has reporters who will actually dig and do stories that are not just blind regurgutation of some single source.
Chris do be well, and let me know how you are doing please! Kristen hug and love that uncle- love and family are supreme gifts, and there are lots of long term studies showing a good support system helps in both patient comfort and actually improves outcomes!