Patterns of multidisciplinary care in the management of non-metastatic invasive breast cancer in the United States Medicare patient.

PURPOSE: Multidisciplinary care (MDC) in managing breast cancer is resource-intensive and growing in prevalence anecdotally, although care patterns are poorly characterized. We sought to determine MDC patterns and effects on care in the United States Medicare patient. METHODS: Patients diagnosed with non-metastatic invasive breast cancer from 1992-2009 were reviewed using the Survival, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked dataset. MDC was defined as a post-diagnosis, preoperative visit with a surgical, medical, and radiation oncologist. Same-day MDC (MDC RESULTS: Among 88,865 patients, MDC was utilized in 2.9 %, with 14.1 % of these having MDC CONCLUSION: While increasing, few Medicare patients undergo MDC and MD