The dangers of cancer are more than physical. New research shows that cancer patients in the US often pay heavy and permanent financial bills following their treatment, which can lead to lower rates of debt and bankruptcy.
The US is known for having some of the best cancer-related outcomes in the world, including a lower death rate than many other high-income nations. But the average cost of cancer treatment (and health care in general) is also much higher in the US than its peers, and many studies have found that cancer patients will often experience financial hardship as a result of their diagnosis. But two new studies, presented this week at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2024, appear to be the first to empirically demonstrate the financial decline that cancer patients often suffer.
In the first study, researchers analyzed data from the Experian credit bureau of patients who were registered in the Massachusetts Cancer Registry and were first diagnosed with cancer between 2010 and 2019. They compared the financial results of these patients with similar people without cancer, who did something. as controls. Compared to non-patients, those who had cancer had higher rates of total debt collection and medical-related collections, the researchers found. Cancer patients were also five times more likely to file for bankruptcy, and their credit scores were nearly 80 points lower than those without cancer. In the second study, researchers focused on a subset of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer, looking at potential risk factors that affected their likelihood of complications. Compared to patients who only had surgery (the “normal” comparison group), for example, patients who received only radiation had 62 lower credit scores. Those who had surgery and chemoradiation seemed to fare better, with scores slightly higher than the baseline for people who had surgery alone.
Researchers also found that people with bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancer tend to have lower credit scores than others. People’s loss of good credit also tends to follow them for a long time, with the decline in their credit score lasting up to 9.5 years. Other risk factors associated with severe financial toxicity include being under the age of 62, being homeless, single, making less than $52,000 a year, and being Black or Hispanic.
The group research was not an easy task to do, especially since the credit bureaus are not allowed to share potentially identifiable data with others. To mitigate this limitation, according to the researchers, MCR first securely provided their patient registration data to Experian, which then matched and merged it with their credit data. Experian then stripped the aggregated data of any personally identifiable information before sending it to the researchers for analysis. In all, the effort took five years, but it allowed the scientists to accurately track the financial behavior of cancer patients compared to non-patients—something that previous studies on the topic have not been able to do.
“These are the first studies to provide quantitative evidence of financial risk among cancer survivors,” said lead researcher Benjamin James, chief of general surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, in a statement from the doctor. ACS. “Previous data on this topic relies heavily on independent research reviews.”
The researchers point out that their data comes from Massachusetts, which is the state where universal health coverage is mandated. So it’s possible that Americans who get cancer and live elsewhere will have a worse time financially. That said, there have been significant changes recently in how medical bills can generally affect our finances. In recent years, the major bureau companies have begun removing paid-off and small-time bad debts from their reports—a change that appears to have had a positive effect on Americans’ credit already. This summer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also proposed a new rule that would completely prevent medical debt from appearing on most credit reports, potentially eliminating up to $49 billion in medical debt that has lowered the credit scores of 15 million Americans. But researchers still argue that more needs to be done to protect patients from the crippling costs of cancer treatment.
“These continuing financial challenges, even in a relatively well-insured state, require extensive policy changes and reforms, including a re-examination of debt collection practices,” said James. “More research is needed, but I think financial security should be a priority in cancer care.”
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