Doctors-in-training were traditionally shielded from the cost of the tests and treatment required for their patients.  Students were taught to order tests based on their evaluation of the condition, rather than factor in the high cost to the patient. 

Now, many residency programs are creating courses for students about health policy that include information about treatment costs and insurance. For example, Dr. Yasmin S. Meah, an assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, directs a clinic that she describes as teaching future doctors how to “understand what is necessary and what is not. ” Students there are learning valuable lessons in how to practice medicine more cost-effectively for patients.

These are exciting developments because, as the financial impact of cancer treatment can be overwhelming, cost of care is a key issue for doctors and patients to discuss. Just as important is knowing about the resources that exist to provide patients with financial support.

The Cancer Financial Assistance Coalition (CFAC) is a group of organizations, which includes CancerCare, that offers financial help and resources. The coalition educates patients and providers about existing resources through a comprehensive online database.

The CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation provides eligible individuals with up to $10,000 per year in co-payment assistance. 

Learn more about the financial support offered by CancerCare.

The costs of treatment and care for a person with cancer have skyrocketed in recent years, with overall spending in the U.S. now exceeding $90 billion.  It is impossible to provide an estimate of the “average” cost of cancer treatment, as hundreds of different diagnoses and their respective costs are too extreme to yield an accurate median.

The only certainty is, cancer is an extremely expensive illness to treat.  Charitable organizations such as CancerCare provide financial help to thousands of people per year but are not the total solution to the financial hardships people with cancer too often face.

We are optimistic that this weekend’s vote on health care reform will spark a change towards more comprehensive coverage, and help to ease the already-tremendous financial burden of a cancer diagnosis on individuals and families.

For more than 60 years, CancerCare has provided financial assistance to help with some types of costs, including transportation, homecare, childcare, and pain medication. Our social workers and case managers are knowledgeable about financial issues, and will work closely with you to get you the help you need.

The CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation was created in 2007 to help people with health insurance who are struggling to cover their treatment co-payments.  Qualified individuals with certain diagnoses may receive up to $10,000 per year in co-payment assistance.

CancerCare is a member of the Cancer Financial Assistance Coalition (CFAC), a coalition of organizations that help cancer patients manage their financial challenges.  We encourage you to use the coalition’s resource directory to find financial resources in your community.

To learn more about managing the cost of cancer treatment, please visit the ASCO Cancer Foundation’s financial assistance section of their website.

Read the full USA Today article here.

According to the Associated Press, the Pfizer program makes available more than 70 types of widely prescribed medications it manufactures, such as anti-pain drugs and anti-depressants. The program helps people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1, 2009 and have been taking the drug for three months or more.

Visit the Pfizer website for more information about the program and the medications offered. For more information about specific chemotherapy drugs available through Pfizer’s patient assistance program, call 866-706-2400.

Boston-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals, owned by the Japanese pharmaceutical, The Takeda Company, recently launched a website honoring the senbazuru tradition, where people facing cancer–patients, caregivers, loved ones–can express their hopes and wishes for the New Year. Each message of hope posted at the site is represented by a bird-shaped paper figurine.

 Millennium Pharmaceuticals is a funder of CancerCare’s Door to Door program, which provides financial assistance to cover transportation costs for people undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma.

Leave your wish at 1000 Cranes of Hope.com (the site is free but log-in registration is required). For every wish left at the site, Millennium will make a donation to a healthcare-related charity.

CancerCare's Jane Levy (center) with Avon's Carol Kurzig and financial expert Suze Orman, accepting a $1.125 million grant award, made possible by participants in Avon's annual Walk for Breast Cancer.

 CancerCare was among 8 non-profit organizations receiving substantial grants this past weekend from the Avon Foundation for Women to support direct services and care for women facing breast cancer.

The grant funds were made possible by the more than 4,000 men and women, including hundreds of breast cancer survivors, who walked in the seventh annual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on Oct. 10 and 11 in New York City and raised a record $8.7 million to support a variety of health care non-profits that assist women facing breast cancer.

The Walk is a noncompetitive event, in which participants collect pledges for completing either a walking marathon (26.2 miles) or a marathon and a half (39.3 miles), split over 2 days. 

The Avon Foundation is a long-time supporter of CancerCare’s free counseling, education and financial assistance programs for underserved women with breast cancer who live in New York City and the tri-state area.

CancerCare received nearly $1.13 million — the second largest grant award presented — during the celebratory Closing Ceremony of the Walk. Suze Orman, financial expert and Special Ambassador for the Avon Foundation for Women, and Carol Kurzig, President of the Avon Foundation, were on hand to present the ceremonial check to CancerCare Director of Patient Services Jane Levy.

To date, Avon’s support has allowed CancerCare to provide its free, professional services to more than 39,000 low-income women facing breast cancer.

Numerous studies show that hospitals that perform a higher number of surgeries per year for a specific diagnosis have better patient outcomes. Especially for rare diagnoses, these high-volume hospitals (HVHs) are highly recommended, and patients are heeding this advice. According to this latest study, the number of procedures performed at HVHs increased significantly over the 10-year period examined (1996-2006).

HVHs tend to be located in larger metropolitan areas that are a longer distance from many patients’ homes, the study shows, especially for patients with esophageal and pancreatic cancers, who endured the highest increase in travel distance from home to the facility where their surgeries were performed.

The cost of traveling farther distances for their care may pose a significant barrier to patients with limited resources, the study’s authors suggest. CancerCare helps by providing limited transportation grants to eligible individuals through our Financial Assistance program. CancerCare also assists multiple myeloma patients with treatment-related transportation costs through our Door to Door program.

Questions like these are running through many patients’ minds, says CancerCare Executive Director Diane Blum, MSW, despite many physicians’ believing that their patients are not worried about cost.

Yet, how they will be able to pay for insurance co-payments, medications and transportation to outpatient services are among the financial worries of many cancer patients, notes Blum, who is quoted in the July/August 2009 issue of Oncology Nursing News, in the article, “Costs of Care Now Part of Care Discussion.”

Blum, who chairs the Patient Resources Subcommittee of the ASCO Cost of Cancer Care Task Force, urged doctors to address the costs of treatment with their patients during a panel discussion at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual conference, held this past June in Orlando, Fla. She also covered a variety of financial assistance programs available for people undergoing cancer treatment including CancerCare’s Co-Payment Assistance Foundation and the Cancer Financial Assistance Coalition, a group of 12 organizations that provide financial support.

“We cannot pay [all of] the bills,” says Blum, “but we can…get you to the resources most appropriate to your need.”