Patients often do not discuss treatment costs with their cancer care team.
Women with metastatic breast cancer and older cancer patients often experience financial distress related to the cost of their care, but many people do not discuss financial considerations with their doctors and other providers, according to three new studies presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Care Symposium last weekend in Phoenix.
“As oncologists, we see the burden of high treatment costs on our patients every day. Many of them are skimping on needed medication, liquidating their savings and taking other extreme measures to control costs,” said ASCO expert Timothy Gilligan, MD, MSc, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute. “These studies reaffirm the important role we can play in initiating and guiding conversations about the cost of cancer care with our patients so that together we can make the best possible treatment decisions.”
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