Deadly as cancer could be to a person's health, it also wreaks havoc on one's finances.
According to a January study through the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, one-third of cancer survivors get into debt, and three percent seek bankruptcy relief.
“Research implies that financial distress is [at least] equal to the worry of dying from the disease,” says Dan Sherman, owner of the NaVectis Group, which educates hospital personnel regarding how to assist with financial navigation for cancer patients. “Some who're identified as having cancer do everything they possibly can, and undergo a lot of [financial] resources. Others try to keep their families from becoming destitute.”
While he recalls an extreme example – a guy who made a decision to forgo treatment and hasten his death so he could pass away before a $200,000 term life insurance policy expired – many patients spend some money first and deal with consequences later. Here are a few who did the things they had to in order to stay alive – together with expert advice that might have helped salve the financial pain.
Deferred retirement
For middle- to upper-middle-class people, even those with gold-standard insurance plans, it's not always the cost of care that does them in financially. More regularly, it's needing to cease working during treatment, as was the situation with Forest Hills resident Bob Tufts, who felt the sting of losing two incomes after he was identified as having a blood-related cancer in 2009. The 61-year-old former Wall Street executive had expenses that included his daughter's college tuition and recalls 14 months of no longer working – and the double whammy of his wife removing try to be his caregiver.
“She was running everywhere, and seeking to work was almost impossible,” he says. After digging via a good chunk of his savings to be able to live, he wound up pulling $10,000 to $15,000 from his 401(k), which comes with heavy tax penalties.
Laurel Wiley seemed to be well-off. The 50-year-old, who had been raised in Tenafly, NJ, and Vestal, NY, had access to good doctors and knew how to cut corners, such as staying in no-cost Hope Lodge, near Herald Square, whilst getting cancer care. Yet she still moved in with her parents after treatment, partly to assist them to out because they deal with old age. Despite good insurance and resources, Wiley says she has $15,000 in debt that she can't pay. “I lost my 401(k) and my BMW,” she says.
The expert says: Wiley and Tufts are exactly the kinds of cancer sufferers whom Family Reach, a national nonprofit funded by private and corporate contributions, wants to help.
“We step in and settle payments not covered by insurance,” says Family Reach CEO Carla Tardif. “We cover mortgages, car payments, utilities for cancer patients. This is for the middle class – lower-class people already have systems in place to support them. Our goal is to prevent people from having to go to their 401(k)s.” (Qualified patients can use using a single-page application submitted by hospital social workers.)
A new Family Reach program launching in 2021, Financial Treatment Project, aims to allow people know early on concerning the financial challenges they'll face and address them in advance, with monetary assistance and enrollment in expense-covering programs.
Even though Family Reach helped 3,000 to 4,000 people in 2021, Tardif is annoyed by the umber of eligible patients who remain unaware of what's out there.
“There are resources,” she says. “But individuals don't know about them. We have to open the conversations.”
When insurance goes bust
In early 2021, Eden Lake checked in to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and paid $17,000 up front, most of which was raised via GoFundMe, for crucial lung cancer surgery. The 48-year-old photographer from Gary, Ind., expected Assurant Health to get most of the cost. However, in late 2021, the insurer failed, and potential replacement carriers refused to pay for the out-of-state procedure.
But Lake wanted treatment at among the world's premier facilities and took the plunge.
“Indiana isn't the place for great doctors,” she says. Today, Lake is around the mend, but her post-surgery finances have hit very cheap.
“A couple of weeks ago I had 76 cents staying with you, and my car isn't running,” Lake says. “But I manage.”
The expert says: Caitlin Donovan, spokesperson for that National Patient Advocate Foundation, says those like Lake could have shopped for a more agreeable option, when it comes to cost and care.
“A business called MediBid does reverse eBay,” says Donovan, explaining that the web-based medical marketplace lets providers bid to sell you health care services, with the concept of coming in low rather than high.
“If you are open to where you want to go and when for you to do it, you may be able to find a more affordable option that may be just as good as Sloan Kettering,” says Donovan. “Overall, Sloan might have the very best cancer care, but there are more facilities that master treating specific types of cancer.”
Premature bankruptcy
Floridian Fiona Finn, 48, survived cancer of the colon, but she's yet to recover from the disease's monetary toll. In early stages, she hesitated to choose a colonoscopy – she didn't wish to spend money on the co-pay – but 14 months later, when symptoms became too blatant to disregard, she got tested.
“They told me right then and there which i had colon cancer,” Finn says.
Visits to an oncologist, a radiologist and a colorectal surgeon quickly followed the diagnosis.
“Within Thirty days, I had been getting bills, plus they piled-up,” she says. At that time, Finn was married, had a job and owned a home with her husband. Within a year, she was away from home she had lived in, her husband had divorced her and she or he needed to stop working as a result of the condition. Finally, a premature promise of bankruptcy left her saddled with $40,000 in bills.
“There is no way to avoid your debt that accumulates if you don't possess a reserve of savings,” says Finn. “I were built with a credit score of 815 before all this began. I can't even tell you how bad my credit score is now.”
‘2-3 weeks ago I had 76 cents in the bank, and my car isn't running. But I manage.’
– Eden Lake
The expert says: Bad as all that sounds, Finn isn't alone. Based on Sherman, 60 % of bankruptcies in the United States are based on hospital bills, unsurprising when you consider average out-of-pocket cancer cost is $35,000 each year. One way to prevent bankruptcy, he says, is to apply for programs that help with co-pays.
“If the individual is insured and receiving, say, chemotherapy, you will find co-pay assistance programs,” he states. “There are pharmaceutical firms that will help by helping cover their co-pays if you are using their medicine. The restriction is you must have commercial insurance. Most have liberal income criteria – for many you may make $150,000 but still qualify.”
Also, a health care technology company called Vivor includes a system called PayRx that providers can use to locate offers for patients. A similar resource, usable by patients, is called NeedyMeds.
“It is [estimated] that 80 % of people who receive infusions or oral medication are eligible [for co-pay assistance], but only about 20 % are enrolled,” says Sherman.
He stresses the significance of hospitals being aware of these programs and also the hospital receiving bill the companies.
“It can be challenging,” he says, “but the greater people create a stink, the more hospitals listen.”
