Younger Patients Affected More than Older Ones
One of the first studies of its kind has been released, examining the connection between cancer diagnosis and patient bankruptcy. The large study, out of Washington State, shows that cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to go bankrupt than people without cancer.
“The financial burden of cancer can be substantial for patients and their families,” reads the opening of the new study released by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published in the journal Health Affairs, May 2013. According to the main author, Dr. Scott Ramsey, “This is the strongest evidence we have between a disease and risk for severe financial distress.”
Dr. Ramsey, a staff physician at the University of Washington Medical Center, says, “We need to look into why this happening and see if there is something we as a society can do to reduce that risk.”
Large Study: 197,840 Patients
The study was conducted between 1995 and 2009 in Western Washington State. A cancer registry was used to determine which patients were diagnosed with cancer and court records were used to determine which patients filed for bankruptcy.
During the 14 year study, 197,840 adult patients were studied. A total of 4,408 filed for personal bankruptcy protection after being diagnosed with cancer, compared with 2,291 patients who did not have a diagnosis of cancer.
Filing for bankruptcy among the patients diagnosed with cancer fell into two categories: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. A majority, 85%, of the patients with cancer filed under Chapter 7. The remaining 17% filed under Chapter 13.
Cancer patients who filed for bankruptcy were more likely to be younger, female and nonwhite.
Thyroid cancer was linked to the highest chances of filing for bankruptcy, despite being a less common cancer. This could be due to the fact that thyroid cancer affects younger women more often than other cancers. How should this make a difference? The authors explained that younger women more likely live in single-income households and have lower rates of employment and lower wages. These three factors mean the younger women have less access to quality health insurance and therefore they are more financially vulnerable.
Second on the list of cancers most likely to cause a patient to file for bankruptcy is lung cancer, the most common cancer.
The lowest rates of bankruptcy were in men with prostate cancer, a type of cancer that usually affects older men.
Younger Patients at Increased Risk for Bankruptcy
A cancer diagnosis is more likely as a patient gets older. So you might think that bankruptcy among younger patients diagnosed with cancer would be low. Not the case at all. In fact, the study shows that patients diagnosed with cancer in their 20’s or early 30’s had the highest rates of bankruptcy, up to 10 times that of older age groups.
On the converse, bankruptcy filing rates were much lower for patients 65 years of age and older. The authors of the study suggest a few reason for this trend. First, people 65 or older generally have Medicare insurance and Social Security benefits. Additionally, older people are likely to have more assets and income.
Suggestions from the Study
“We believe that cancer care facilities and oncology practitioners should assess the financial health of their patients as a matter of course,” concludes the study. “Because temporary inability to work is often unavoidable during therapy, patients and their families should be encouraged to make financial preparations to the greatest extent possible. More generally, this study underlines the importance for cancer care providers of carefully considering the use of services that have limited evidence of substantial benefit and potential high out-of-pocket costs.”
The authors go on to suggest that there may be a role for employers and governments in creating programs that could reduce the likelihood of financial insolvency. The example sited is potential tax incentives. These breaks would encourage employers to provide supplemental insurance policies with fixed sums to cover household and out-of-pocket expenses following a cancer diagnosis.
As a final comments, the authors say any future study which looks at cancer patients and bankruptcy should look at one area they could not: the ability of these patients to later obtain health insurance and overall access to health care.
To Read the Full Study to go Health Affairs by clicking here: Washington State Cancer Patients Found To Be At Greater Risk For Bankruptcy Than People Without A Cancer Diagnosis