VOA常速英语:美国医院降低抗癌药物的成本

Have you been feeling well?
Yes. Medical care in the US costs more than it does in any other developed country.
That means surviving cancer can empty a patient’s bank account.
When Tory Gibe got her cancer diagnosis, she thought she would be okay financially.
I just went on what they said to do.
And at the time, I had really great private insurance.
Three weeks later, her great private insurance stopped covering her medication.
I said well, how much will this be just to get through for the month.
And they said for the one-month supply its 11,000 dollars.
That’s about average for new cancer therapy in the US.

But to make the situation even worse, it was only one of thirteen drugs Gibe needed.
The astronomical cost of cancer treatment causes many patients in the US, to try to save money at the expense of their health.
One in four cancer patients actually report engaging in some risky behavior, to try to save them cost.
So either skipping refills of medications or even splitting doses.
A financial counsellor at the Cancer Center, helped Gibe find a way to pay for her treatment.
We’ve helped over 30,000 patients gain access to grant funding,
or manufacture assistance program with a total value of over 500 million dollars.
The hospital also introduced a new program, that keeps these expensive medications from going to waste.
Patients can now return pills they don’t need.
We put that medication into essentially a repository, where we wait for the next patient that has a financial need.
So that we can re-dispense to another cancer patient.
The program helps patients focus on getting well, and not stressing about their finances.
There’s so much stress that goes along with this diagnosis.
And you really want to try to minimize that stress along with the cancer.
And this is one thing that has been given to me, that I’m so thankful and grateful for.
Kennerly Shah says the goal is to start out small, and then to expand the program to cover medications for other diseases.
Another goal is to provide a model that other institutions can copy.
So more patients can afford their treatments.