Sarah thought she was prepared. She had health insurance. She’d read the treatment plan. She knew cancer would be hard.
What she didn’t know was that managing her cancer would cost her nearly everything she’d saved.
The Cost Nobody Talks About
Studies show that 3 out of 4 people with cancer worry about how they will pay for cancer treatment and keep up with their day-to-day costs. But most people don’t discover this reality until they’re drowning in it.
“Financial toxicity is a big issue in people diagnosed with cancer. It’s a real thing,” says Dr. Lise Alschuler, naturopathic oncologist and breast cancer survivor. “I mean, I’ve seen patients who have burned through their insurance, some conventional treatment, and they’re now facing huge medical bills.”
The term “financial toxicity” isn’t metaphorical. Financial toxicity describes problems a patient has related to the cost of medical care, and several studies show that people with cancer and survivors are more likely to have financial toxicity than people without cancer.
And it happens on both sides of the treatment equation—conventional and integrative.
Why Cancer Costs Spiral
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Crushing the Cancer Curveball - Kicking Cancer's Ass Podcast to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.