Financial Toxicity

To set the stage: it had been a successful 7 months of figuring out my new role as an oncology patient financial advocate. Things were clicking, processes and workflows were making sense, and, most importantly, I was helping patients with cancer.

The Disco App, born from “DIScussions of COst” and designed by Dr Hamel and her team, is a novel point-of-care communication intervention aimed at improving discussions of cost between patients and their oncologists, while alleviating financial toxicity in the process.

FDA-approved oral cancer drugs are not cheap, and many patients are unable to afford these promising therapies with extremely high price tags. Depending on the type of cancer and the drug used to treat it, the price of oral cancer therapy can range from about $10,000 to $25,000 per month.

A study of healthcare staff perspectives of financial toxicity experienced by cancer patients and staff- and systems-level cancer care delivery approaches for addressing financial toxicity.

Medical insurance, employment rights, and financial toxicity! Oh my! Where can patients turn when faced with a legal issue related to their diagnosis?

The higher the financial distress experienced by a patient with cancer, the lower their health-related quality of life.

A commentary on the government’s efforts to reduce the price of drugs for patients who have cancer or other chronic illnesses.

At the recent 2017 Annual Meeting of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, Ronan Kelly, MD, Johns Hopkins Medicine International, The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, spoke about financial toxicity, the need for value-based care to address it, and what oncologists and healthcare providers can do to reduce costs of cancer care.

Financial toxicity can be long lasting, and the extent to which patients are affected often depends on when in the time of their benefit year they are diagnosed.

Researchers in Chicago have developed a financial toxicity grading system based on independent and clinically meaningful changes in health-related quality of life.