Appearances

The Financial Side of Cancer

Posted by Jean

 

This morning, I joined Dr. Nancy Snyderman – author of Medical Myths That Can Kill You – on Today to talk about the number one cause of bankruptcy in the country.  If you watched the video above, you know it’s not unaffordable mortgages or even credit card debt.  

It’s illness. And cancer patients are suffering. They’re having trouble paying for life-saving care – running up large debts, filing for personal bankruptcy and even delaying or forgoing potentially life-saving treatment. Even having private health insurance (that you purchased or receive through your employer) isn’t enough to save you.

A new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Cancer Society notes that cancer patients in particular suffer financially because: 

• Even covering part of the cost can be hugely expensive. It’s fairly common for patients to max out on the number of treatments for, say, radiation, that your insurance policy will cover. Then you need to come out of pocket for those costs. And patients routinely hit the lifetime maximums their coverage allow and then are left on their own.
• Patients lose benefits by being too sick to work. If you’re sick and unable to work for 60 days or more, you could lose your job and with it your health coverage. You are eligible to maintain those benefits under COBRA for 18 months, but premiums for a family run $1,200, or sometimes more, a month.
• Pre-existing conditions. Private insurance companies often won’t cover people who have had cancer. Or, if they are willing, the premiums are again prohibitively expensive. One man, a 10-year survivor of prostate cancer, has to pay one-quarter of his income just to cover the premiums on his policy.

So what are patients – and the people who love them – supposed to do?

Talk to your doctor. When you receive a diagnosis, sit down with your doctor with pencil and paper – it’s very difficult to remember things when you’re under stress – and ask:

1. What type of treatment will I need
2. What are the side effects in relation to my job? And how can these be managed?
3. If I’m worried about managing the costs of care.  Who can help me?

Take that information to your benefits department, or if you work for yourself or a small company without a benefits department, talk to your insurer directly. You need to understand what is covered under your plan, what sort of pre-approvals you will need, how you can best work within their process to get your claims paid, and – if you can – find a person within that insurer that you can talk to if and when you have questions. The sad thing about health insurance, although it’s such a necessity these days, is that most people spend less than an hour deciding which of the plans they are offered makes sense for them. And very few people read the manual until they need it. We’ll have another open enrollment period in the fall, and it makes sense to spend a little time making sure you’re on the best plan for you and your family.

If you don’t have health insurance – if you’re one of the 45 million people without – understand that there is a much bigger, more democratic market for policies for individuals. A high deductible policy, which won’t cover your occasional visits to the physician, but will step in to help protect you from financial ruin if you’re facing cancer, is much more affordable and available than it used to be. Go to ehealthinsurance.com to get started.

Also know that there is a network of organizations that offer financial assistance for everything from travel (including corporate jets, private pilots and transportation for families of the patient as well as the patient), housing (there is a network of more than 150 nonprofits that provide lodging and support to people receiving treatment away from home), medication (through various prescription assistance groups), and out-of-pocket medical costs that insurance doesn’t cover.  Go to cancer.net or cancercare.org for comprehensive lists.