Ongoing financial toxicity screening can ease patients' financial burden
AI-translated from the Chinese original · editorially reviewed
Taiwan's National Health Insurance system is admired around the world, but as new drugs keep coming to market, the pressure on NHI resources continues to mount. Reimbursement of new drugs is getting slower and the conditions ever stricter, leaving patients to shoulder steep treatment costs out of pocket. Against this backdrop, patients' financial toxicity is drawing growing attention.
According to an article on Medscape, screening patients with advanced cancer for financial toxicity can meaningfully reduce their economic burden. The study used a digital monitoring system to run regular financial toxicity screenings, helping patients surface financial problems early and seek the appropriate financial counseling and assistance.
How financial toxicity screening affects patients' financial hardship
In the study, 30.2% of patients who received financial toxicity screening experienced worsening financial hardship, lower than the 39.0% among patients who were not screened. In interviews, nurses and patients noted that ongoing financial toxicity screening helped them identify patients who might be reluctant to seek this kind of assistance or unaware that it exists. That said, while the intervention had a similarly positive effect on white patients and on both men and women, it appeared to have no effect on Black patients (38% in the intervention group versus 39% in the control group).
PatientsForce: shaping the next frontier of patient support together
Since 2015, PatientsForce has partnered with dozens of leading multinational pharmaceutical companies in the Taiwan market to deliver Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs), designed to lower the barriers to treatment for patients who must pay out of pocket, ease the financial burden on their families, improve quality of life, and help them secure better drug benefit programs. PatientsForce works with more than one hundred healthcare institutions, giving caregivers and healthcare professionals a more efficient way to manage these programs. Its drug donation compliance management system makes the process of applying for and receiving medication far smoother for patients.
Financial toxicity screening is essential to relieving patients' economic strain. Beyond offering a diverse range of innovative financial support programs, PatientsForce has developed a patient financial toxicity screening system that uses regular assessments to build a clearer picture of a patient's financial toxicity over the course of treatment, so caregivers can discuss treatment strategy with patients more clearly and provide timely assistance. To learn more about PatientsForce services and the patient financial toxicity screening system, follow the PatientsForce official account.
Kimik Wang, Deputy Director, Development and Patient Burden Reduction Division, PatientsForce