Multidisciplinary care service: issues raised so far and possible solutions suggested

ABSTRACT

Multidisciplinary care service has started on August 1, 2014 after Korean health authority's decision of its approval and reimbursement. However, despite its early success, it raises some issues caused by less flexibility of the model, which might limit further expansion and development of the model or even establishment of a new model. It has only two types of 4-expert and 5 or more-expert services. It is also reimbursed only when given in outpatient clinic, and much worse, as of face-to-face service. Then, I will review the issues raised so far and try to suggest possible solutions, for example, sort of multidisciplinary consultation service for in-patient multidisciplinary care service. The issues and solutions will engender a lot of controversy, but to discuss about them might be the first step to further develop the service. In addition, I will briefly touch on expected effects of the service, including improvement of cancer care, such as shortening the time from the first visit to diagnosis and treatment or speed-up of diagnosis process, enhancement of cancer patients' satisfaction and so on, which might be helpful to guide future direction of the multidisciplinary care service. The commencement of multidisciplinary care service is an important milestone in cancer care as well as medical system of Korea. However, it is not the best and perfect one but was just chosen as one of champion models. It has much room for improvement or there is still more work to be done to make it better.