New Tool for Estimating Cancer Care Costs

Have you ever considered how you’d be able to manage the financial burdens of paying for a serious emergency?  Dealing with a life-limiting condition like kidney and liver failure, heart disease, and other problems can be very costly.  Medical problems in general can be expensive, but in terms of sheer expense, cancer can be one of costliest diseases you can have.

Take a moment to think about some of the basics you have to pay for to treat cancer, including:

• Doctor’s appointments
• Lab tests
• Clinic treatments
• Procedures
• Surgery
• Medicine

The list goes on from there.  A lot of people are unsure of how to bring up finances with their doctors and insurance company, even though it’s something every cancer patient has to deal with.  There is some financial help for cancer patients available, but most will have to look for their own ways to fund their treatment.  Selling your life insurance policy can be an excellent way to offset certain cancer costs.

Making a sound financial decision about your cancer treatment plan may sound difficult, but a recent development may help make it easier.  Oncologists and researchers from the University of Chicago have created a tool to estimate the general expense of a cancer diagnosis and treatment. With the help of over 150 cancer patients, and their own experiences financing their treatment, they developed the Comprehensive Score for Financial Toxicity (COST).

On average, cancer survivors have higher medical expenses, usually as much as $3,000 to $4,000 every year, compared to average medical expenses of other life-limiting conditions.  This is an issue because many cancer patients have decreased income due to an inability to return to work, or the need to reduce hours to continue with treatments.  The study showed that the problems associated with cancer costs aren’t limited to people of a certain income level. People from all walks of life have problems managing medical costs.  Sometimes patients that have higher income levels opt for more expensive treatments and assume that they can afford them. Unfortunately, as costs pile up, they end up finding themselves in debt.

COST is designed to give people a realistic and affordable way to plan for cancer care costs.  As health care prices rise, it will become more difficult to find a way to budget for care.  This tool can help make a lot of difficult financial decisions a little easier to handle.