Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Financial Considerations
Cancer-related expenses can add up quickly, so it is important to talk to the members of your health care team about the potential cost of your cancer care soon after diagnosis. Though talking about expenses can be sensitive, the financial staff at your health care provider’s office or at the hospital where they practice understand that treatment can be expensive. Don’t be embarrassed to bring it up.
Types of Cancer-Related Costs
The costs of cancer care can be grouped into two types of expenses: medical and lifestyle. The medical expenses – including medical office visits, tests, treatments, drugs and caregiving – are the most obvious additions to your spending.
Less obvious are the increases in your routine living expenses because of new costs. After a cancer diagnosis, you may spend more money on transportation and travel, legal help and financial services. You may also need to hire help for child or elder care, meal preparation or housecleaning. These additional expenses are a heavy burden on their own. They are even more substantial when your income is reduced because you and/or your significant other are unable to work the same amount of hours during your treatment.
Cancer-related costs do not end when treatment is over. You will need to budget for follow-up care, frequent screenings and checkups. And, you might have to adjust to a permanently reduced income if you are not able to return to your regular work hours.
Where to Look
It is unlikely that even the best health insurance plan will cover every cancer-related cost. Become familiar with your insurance plan so you know what to expect.
In addition, you may want to investigate other options:
- Ask your health care team for a referral to case managers, social workers, advocates, financial counselors and patient navigators.
- Ask the hospital or treatment center if they offer a payment plan or financial assistance programs.
- Consider hiring a health care advocate, also called a patient advocate, medical negotiator or medical billing advocate. These professionals can find mistakes on medical bills and negotiate lower fees on your behalf. The fee for their help is often a percentage of the amount the patient advocate saves you.
- Reach out to advocacy groups and other nonprofit organizations who can point you toward sources of financial assistance.
- Contact national disease and patient advocacy nonprofits that can connect you to an advocate who serves patients at no cost.
- In some dire circumstances, investigate whether declaring bankruptcy is an option.
- Ask the human resources department through your employer if you qualify for short-term and/or long-term disability benefits.
- Explore the resources in the back of this guide.
If you lose health insurance through your employer because you need to stop working, ask your human resources department for information on applying for The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which can offer up to 12 paid workweeks of leave in a 12-month period. You may also be eligible for COBRA, which allows eligible employees, spouses and dependents to continue their group health insurance for a limited time after a “qualifying event” causes them to lose coverage. A cancer diagnosis should be considered a qualifying event.
If you are under 26, you can usually be added to your parent’s plan. When a parent applies for a new plan in the Marketplace, they can include you on their application if they plan to claim you as their tax dependent. If you are already on your parent’s Marketplace plan, you can stay covered on their plan through December 31 of the year you turn 26. If you find out you carry a genetic mutation that increases your risk for inherited cancers, you may want to consider prophylactic treatment such as surgery, radiation therapy or hormone therapy while you are still on your parent’s plan.
If you’re still in school, you may be able to enroll in a student health plan and meet the requirement for having coverage under the health care law.
If you have a low income, you may qualify for free or low-cost coverage using Social Security Disability Income and Medicaid insurance.
What if You Don't Have Insurance?
- Ask your hospital’s billing or financial department if they offer charity care or self-pay services, which is discounted care for uninsured or underinsured patients.
- Ask your oncologist if you’re eligible to enroll in a clinical trial that is investigating a new treatment for your cancer type, for which the treatment is free as part of the clinical trial process.
- Look for a patient assistance program through the pharmaceutical company that makes the drugs on your treatment plan. They sometimes provide drugs for free or at a lower cost. A patient navigator or financial navigator can be helpful with this.
- Look into nonprofit organizations that help people with the type of cancer you have.
- Check with your local Department of Social Services to see if they help pay for food, housing or other costs associated with cancer treatment.
- Go to HealthCare.gov to find health insurance through your state’s Marketplace.
