A clear majority of patients with cancer experience some sort of financial hardship, and the cost of care is something that weighs on the minds of patients and their families right from the moment of diagnosis, said Todd Yezefski, MD, senior fellow in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington.
A clear majority of patients with cancer experience some sort of financial hardship, and the cost of care is something that weighs on the minds of patients and their families right from the moment of diagnosis, said Todd Yezefski, MD, senior fellow in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington.
Transcript
At what point after a cancer diagnosis do patients and families start to think about the financial costs?
I think really from that initial diagnosis, patients are thinking about the cost of their care. It’s something that’s weighing on their minds. From the first appointment, they’re getting bills from the hospital, the doctors, they need to pay copays and coinsurance. I think that the financial assistance and financial navigation should start right from the beginning because that’s when patients start to notice the costs and it only keeps growing from there.
How does experiencing financial hardships impact the outcomes of a patient’s care?
Studies have shown that up to 75% of patients experience some sort of financial hardship as a result of their cancer diagnosis and treatment. Patients often times have to stop working if they are already working, spouses and partners sometimes need to stop work. Patients who have a diagnosis of cancer have a higher rate of bankruptcy than people who don’t. So, the financial hardships are real and people experience them and they can be really distressing and troubling.
Dr Kathy Zackowski Discusses the Importance of Rehabilitation Research and Trials in MS
April 26th 2024Kathy Zackowski, PhD, National MS Society, expresses the inherent value of quality rehabilitation trials for broadening clinical understandings of multiple sclerosis (MS) and bettering patient outcomes.
Read More
Examining Low-Value Cancer Care Trends Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
April 25th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the April 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on the rates of low-value cancer care services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listen
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
Listen
Award-Winning Poster Presentations From AMCP 2024
April 23rd 2024At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2024 annual meeting, multiple poster presentations concerned with health equity, data collection, glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, and more were acknowledged for their originality, relevance, clarity, bias, and quality.
Read More