Understanding Your Health Insurance: A How-To Guide

Health insurance for cancer patients can be one of the most significant factors that determines a person’s prognosis. It is an unfortunate reality that cancer is costly; even with a good insurance plan, cancer patients can face steep co-pays, treatment costs, and medication prices. However, health insurance can defray exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses to a degree. Research has shown that financial concerns can discourage some patients from seeking proper care, or cause them to be non-adherent to their medication regimen, putting their health and recovery at risk. While it’s a necessary part of care, understanding health insurance can seem like yet another challenge for cancer patients who already have so many other decisions and details to sort through. To ease that burden, here is a rundown of the steps cancer patients should take to ensure they’re making the most of insurance. Get insured: If you don’t have health insurance, the very first action you need to take after a diagnosis is to enroll in a plan. Visit the federal healthcare site to learn about the private and public plans that are available. If your or your spouse’s employer offers insurance, a cancer diagnosis typically will be considered a qualifying life event, so you can enroll in a plan outside of typical enrollment periods. Other options include Medicare, generally applicable to those over 65, and Medicaid, for low-income or disabled individuals. Stay insured: Cancer treatments may necessitate your taking time off of work or could even result in the loss of a job. Prepare ahead of time. The COBRA program provides temporary insurance coverage, often used by those whose employers discontinue coverage during a leave. Get informed: Learn about your...

How to Stay Organized When Times Get Tough

One of the best pieces of advice for cancer patients may be the simplest: Get organized. From appointments to clinical terminology, a major medical crisis like cancer can generate lots of things to remember. And between co-pay receipts, medical bills, and correspondence with doctors and insurance companies alike, cancer patients may find themselves drowning in a sea of paperwork. Getting and staying organized can be a big help for cancer patients, who already have enough on their minds without having to keep track of every detail that a diagnosis produces. Here are a few items of advice for cancer patients looking to make organization a part of their path to recovery. 3 Tips for Staying Organized Keep notes: Take detailed notes of all of your doctor’s visits, meetings with financial counselors and financial assistance companies, and even interactions with insurance companies. Bring along a loved one to help you log all of the details, or even set up a tape recorder or smartphone so you can revisit the conversations later. Save your paperwork: A dining room table covered in a mountain of bills and receipts is likely a common sight for most cancer patients. It’s important to save that paperwork, as you may need financial documents to challenge insurance decisions or for tax purposes, and all medical paperwork is important to establish a firm record of your case. But it’s easy enough to manage without all the mess. If you have a filing cabinet, clear out a drawer just for documents relating to your case; use color-coded folders or file tabs to differentiate among topics, such as Bills (Paid...

Overcoming Financial Stress as a Result of Cancer

Financial assistance for cancer patients isn’t simply a way to avoid debt or hang onto savings—it can also help patients avoid further physical complications and potentially hang onto years of their lives. The cost of cancer is one of the most serious, yet often overlooked, side effects of the disease. Since finances are often a personal matter, many may choose to keep the burden of mounting medical bills to themselves, which can only further a medical crisis. Stress, including from finances, has been proven to result in poorer physical outcomes. Those who choose to face the overwhelming cost of fighting cancer on their own may actually be putting all that they’re working for at risk. Just like with any stressful circumstance, those who seek help are closer to finding peace of mind—which, for those facing a serious illness like cancer, can literally be life-saving. Financial assistance for cancer patients can come in many forms. Because there is a lack of awareness around the financial impact of cancer, few people may be financially prepared if they receive such a diagnosis, meaning their best option may be to fall back onto the resources that they do have. Life insurance is one outlet that many have invested in, and which can be used in a time of crisis. Instead of selling a policy, however, Life Credit’s Living Benefit Loan program enables cancer patients to borrow against their policy’s death benefit—freeing up cash to help them meet their immediate needs without losing the future benefits of having such a policy. Apart from securing financial assistance for cancer patients, another key is dealing with...