Medical Financial Hardship among Cancer Survivors in the United States: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know?

Abstract

Rising costs of cancer care have led to increased concerns about medical financial hardship for cancer survivors and their families in the United States. In this commentary, we provide an overview of research describing medical financial hardship and introduce a conceptual framework for identifying risk factors and research gaps at the patient and family, provider and care team, health care system, employer, and state and national policy levels. We then use this framework to highlight measurement and data infrastructure gaps related to hardship, summarize existing interventions to minimize hardship, and identify opportunities for future intervention efforts.