Patient economic burden of cancer care more than $21 billion in the United States
Part two of the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer finds that cancer patients in the United States shoulder a large amount of cancer care costs. In 2019, the national patient economic burden associated with cancer care was $21.09 billion, made up of patient out-of-pocket costs of $16.22 billion and patient time costs of $4.87 billion.
Patient time costs reflect the value of time that patients spend traveling to and from health care, waiting for care, and receiving care, according to the report appearing in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). The report is a comprehensive examination of patient economic burden for cancer care to date and includes information on patient out-of-pocket spending by cancer site, stage of disease at diagnosis, and phase of care. While this analysis is about costs that are directly incurred by patients, which are critical to patient finances, the total overall costs of cancer care and lost productivity in the United States are much larger.
Among adults aged 65 years and older who had Medicare coverage, average annualized net out-of-pocket costs for medical services and prescription drugs, across all cancer sites, were highest in the initial phase of care, defined as the first 12 months following diagnosis ($2,200 and $243, respectively), and the end-of-life phase, defined as the 12 months before death among survivors who died ($3,823 and $448, respectively), and lowest in the continuing phase, the months between the initial and end-of-life phases ($466 and $127, respectively). Across all cancer sites, average annualized net patient out-of-pocket costs for medical services in the initial and end-of-life phases of care were lowest for patients originally diagnosed with localized disease compared with more advanced stage disease.
“As the costs of cancer treatment continue to rise, greater attention to addressing patient medical financial hardship, including difficulty paying medical bills, high levels of financial distress, and delaying care or forgoing care altogether because of cost, is warranted,” said Karen E. Knudsen, M.B.A, Ph.D., chief executive officer, American Cancer Society. “These findings can help inform efforts to minimize the patient economic burden of cancer, and specific estimates may be useful in studies of the cost-effectiveness of interventions related to cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship care.”
The annual report is a collaborative effort among the American Cancer Society; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health; and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. The report provides annual information about cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. Part 1 of this annual report, released in July 2021, focused on national cancer statistics.
Analyses of the differences in patient economic burden by cancer type found substantial variation in patient out-of-pocket costs, reflecting differences in treatment intensity and duration as well as survival. In 2019, national out-of-pocket costs were highest for breast ($3.14 billion), prostate ($2.26 billion), colorectal ($1.46 billion), and lung ($1.35 billion) cancers, reflecting the higher prevalence of these cancers.
The authors say that, in addition to morbidity and mortality from cancer and cost of cancer treatment by insurance carriers, out-of-pocket and patient time costs are other metrics that highlight the immense economic burden of cancer—making it a public health priority. Estimates of patient out-of-pocket and time costs can inform discussions between providers and patients about expected costs of treatment, an important element of high-quality care.
