Tips for Planning a Cancer Patient Fundraiser

Raise Money & Boost Morale If you have a friend or relative who was recently diagnosed with cancer, you may have asked yourself “How do I to set up a cancer fundraiser?”. Planning a benefit for a cancer patient requires planning, communication, and a little hard work. You can keep it small and raise money from family, friends, and your neighborhood, or you can go big and involve your local community and benefit from generous media attention and businesses. How do I begin fundraising for a cancer patient? Life Credit offers four helpful tips to get you started!   Plan Ahead – Gather a small group of loved ones, you’ll want to get help and begin planning a cancer benefit weeks beforehand. Pick the location of where you will host the event, such as a local restaurant, person’s house, or other venue. You should also come up with a group activity for the benefit, such as bowling, a silent auction, potluck, or marathon Create Media Attention – Get the word out about the event to generate buzz about your event and cancer fundraising. Many newspapers and community message boards have local event listings for free, and some media outlets may even be interested in covering the benefit for an upcoming story. You can also utilize social media to let folks know. Create a private Facebook page and invite friends, family members, coworkers, and others so they can get the latest news about donations and fundraising. Get Donations – Contact local merchants for donations. You can ask a member of the planning committee who is comfortable with public speaking to do this task. Be sure to provide...

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: Cancer Advocates for 50 Years

Headquartered in Memphis, TN, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has been providing treatments and research for children with cancer and other catastrophic ailments nationwide since 1962. Danny Thomas launched the nonprofit medical institution on the premise that “no child should die in the dawn of life.” Over 50 Years of Dedication Here at Life Credit, we want to not only supply loans for cancer patients, but also endless amounts of research and info to help you fight your condition and lead a full and happy life. That is why we highly recommend visiting the St. Jude website if you have a child in your life that was diagnosed with cancer. For more than half a century, the dedicated professionals at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have been on an endless quest for the cure. They provide numerous clinical and research innovations, such as their Pediatric Cancer Genome Project, which has successfully pinpointed the genetic factors behind some of the most deadly pediatric cancers by comparing the genomes from cancerous and normal cells from more than 700 patients. Endless Treatment Programs St. Jude features a plethora of treatment programs for virtually every type of pediatric cancer including brain tumors, solid tumors, Leukemia and Lymphoma, bone marrow transplant and other types of diseases, such as Sickle Cell Disease and blood disorders. Innovation and Intervention Many discoveries at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have completely transformed how doctors treat kids with cancer and other deadly disease. Since it was established, the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is the most predominant cancer in children, has increased from just 4 percent in 1962...

How Cancer Patients can Keep Track of Medical Bills

Everyone knows cancer is costly—and getting money for cancer patients is critical. Here’s one way to guard your resources: get super organized when it comes to medical bills; it could result in big savings. As anyone who has had a lengthy illness, or even a short term health issue, there are bills and then there are those documents that say, “this is not a bill,” but rather an explanation of benefits or EOB. Medical bills aren’t like credit card statements or any other type of bill for a service, where you get one tidy monthly amount you owe. Instead, bills for one event—a hospital stay for some surgery, for example—come flying in from many different providers. The anesthesiologist will bill separately from the radiologist, as will the surgeon and others. One event, many bills.  Organizing Your Medical Bills  You might want to track events and bills on a spreadsheet, noting dates for services provided, when claims were filed, etc. There are also reimbursements from insurance companies that need to be matched to bills you paid for. But a spreadsheet cannot replace a well-organized file system grouping items that are unresolved, those that are resolved, and so on. One solution is to create a tickler file, a set of folders (and you can do this on the computer as well) with dates, where you put notes about events you expect to have happen in the future. Accuracy Counts Consult your accountant; they may advise recording expenses to get care (including money spent on travel, meal and lodging) and any other costs related to cancer treatment. But perhaps the biggest cost savings...

Coping with the High Cost of Cancer Drugs

If Ben Franklin were alive today, he might have coined those famous words about time and money a little differently: Cancer is money.  While cancer has many expenses, one of the key questions is, how can cancer patients cope with the high cost of cancer drugs? The Cancer Drug Cost Problem Cancer drugs are a crucial part of patient treatment. However, these life-saving drugs often come with a hefty price tag – as much as $12,000 per month. No problem, some patients initially think: I have insurance. That can be important. But insurance companies, including Medicare, require a co-pay of 20% on these drugs. That can translate to $2,400, every month! The reason drug companies can charge this much is that drug manufacturers are free to price their drugs without limit. They can also incentivize oncologists to prescribe more expensive medications. Recently, an episode of 60 Minutes highlighted the growing costs of cancer drugs and the inconsistency in pricing. The 60 minutes episode explained how this pricing game by top pharmaceutical companies has caused cancer diagnoses to become one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy by putting patients in a terrible bind. As the CBS program put it: come up with the money or die. Patients need a solution. Financial Help for Cancer Patients As dedicated physicians and patient advocates work to find a solution to this growing problem, many patients need help now. If you have a life insurance policy, we might be able to help you get relief from the high cost of cancer drugs. We provide Living Benefit Loans to those who have policies of...