Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

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Health Tip: Finding a Family Physician
Title: Health Tip: Finding a Family Physician
Category: Health News
Created: 12/30/2008 2:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 12/30/2008

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

A Report from the Russian Front in the Global Fight against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

TOMSK, RUSSIA–Misha K.–ex-con, ex-drug abuser, family man–arrived promptly at 4 P.M. for his daily dose of antibiotics. He is fighting his second bout with tuberculosis (TB), both times caught while serving a four-year prison term in this small city at the edge of Siberia. His crime: petty thievery to support his drug habit.

The first time, prison doctors put him on a nine-month regimen of antibiotics, a standard prescription for routine cases of so-called susceptible TB. The susceptibility label is something of a misnomer. When streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, the miracle drug was hailed as the magic bullet that cured TB. But the wily Mycobacterium tuberculosis quickly developed resistance. Now it takes four drugs to cure "susceptible" TB.

[More]

Cancer Drug Costs May Help Doctors Select a Treatment

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

TOMSK, RUSSIA–Misha K.–ex-con, ex-drug abuser, family man–arrived promptly at 4 P.M. for his daily dose of antibiotics. He is fighting his second bout with tuberculosis (TB), both times caught while serving a four-year prison term in this small city at the edge of Siberia. His crime: petty thievery to support his drug habit.

The first time, prison doctors put him on a nine-month regimen of antibiotics, a standard prescription for routine cases of so-called susceptible TB. The susceptibility label is something of a misnomer. When streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, the miracle drug was hailed as the magic bullet that cured TB. But the wily Mycobacterium tuberculosis quickly developed resistance. Now it takes four drugs to cure "susceptible" TB.

[More]

Woman Kept In Car Trunk For 10 Days?
Scottish police said they arrested a 35-year-old man in connection with the abduction of a nurse who was found tied up in the trunk of her car — where she may have been held for as long as 10 days.

A Report from the Russian Front in the Global Fight against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

TOMSK, RUSSIA–Misha K.–ex-con, ex-drug abuser, family man–arrived promptly at 4 P.M. for his daily dose of antibiotics. He is fighting his second bout with tuberculosis (TB), both times caught while serving a four-year prison term in this small city at the edge of Siberia. His crime: petty thievery to support his drug habit.

The first time, prison doctors put him on a nine-month regimen of antibiotics, a standard prescription for routine cases of so-called susceptible TB. The susceptibility label is something of a misnomer. When streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, the miracle drug was hailed as the magic bullet that cured TB. But the wily Mycobacterium tuberculosis quickly developed resistance. Now it takes four drugs to cure "susceptible" TB.

[More]

Cancer Drug Costs May Help Doctors Select a Treatment

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

Cancer Drug Costs May Help Doctors Select a Treatment

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

A Report from the Russian Front in the Global Fight against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

TOMSK, RUSSIA–Misha K.–ex-con, ex-drug abuser, family man–arrived promptly at 4 P.M. for his daily dose of antibiotics. He is fighting his second bout with tuberculosis (TB), both times caught while serving a four-year prison term in this small city at the edge of Siberia. His crime: petty thievery to support his drug habit.

The first time, prison doctors put him on a nine-month regimen of antibiotics, a standard prescription for routine cases of so-called susceptible TB. The susceptibility label is something of a misnomer. When streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, the miracle drug was hailed as the magic bullet that cured TB. But the wily Mycobacterium tuberculosis quickly developed resistance. Now it takes four drugs to cure "susceptible" TB.

[More]

Cancer Drug Costs May Help Doctors Select a Treatment

Oncologists will soon be adding “financial counselor” to their job description. With an increasing number of cancer patients suffering economic hardships as a side effect of expensive therapy, most oncologists are finding that cost needs to be considered as part of treatment options. Leading cancer organizations are now working on incorporating cost into treatment guidelines and other materials. The change, which departs from the current American medical ethos, is fraught with thorny questions not only for cancer doctors and patients but also for the health care system at large.

The U.S. spends about $200 billion annually on cancer care; many new drugs cost several thousand dollars monthly. For patients, co-payments represent the most severe sappers of bank accounts. Increasingly, insurers are holding patients accountable for up to 20 percent of the prescription price. Covered drugs being used off-label (for an indication not formally approved but still medically appropriate) can carry co-pays of up to 30 percent.

[More]

A Report from the Russian Front in the Global Fight against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

TOMSK, RUSSIA–Misha K.–ex-con, ex-drug abuser, family man–arrived promptly at 4 P.M. for his daily dose of antibiotics. He is fighting his second bout with tuberculosis (TB), both times caught while serving a four-year prison term in this small city at the edge of Siberia. His crime: petty thievery to support his drug habit.

The first time, prison doctors put him on a nine-month regimen of antibiotics, a standard prescription for routine cases of so-called susceptible TB. The susceptibility label is something of a misnomer. When streptomycin was discovered in the 1940s, the miracle drug was hailed as the magic bullet that cured TB. But the wily Mycobacterium tuberculosis quickly developed resistance. Now it takes four drugs to cure "susceptible" TB.

[More]