Healthcare spending after a cancer diagnosis among working-aged adults.

Abstract

11071 Background: The cost of cancer care has increased dramatically over the past decades, increasing the financial burden on patients. However, current estimates of healthcare spending and out-of-pocket burden rely heavily on data from older populations, which may not reflect contemporary treatment patterns in working-aged adults given the rise in use of novel therapies and increased incidence at younger ages. Methods: We used the 2012-2021 Colorado Central Cancer Registry linked to the All-Payer Claims Database to identify adults aged 22-63 newly diagnosed with cancer. We examined median health plan payments and out-of-pocket spending across the most common insurance and cancer types in six months after diagnosis. Results: Among 20,460 individuals newly diagnosed with cancer, the median total spending in the six months after diagnosis was $60,123 for those insured by private fee-for-service (FFS) plans and $26,326 for those insured by Medicaid. The majority of spending was for medical care. Among individuals insured by private FFS plans, those with lymphoma had the highest total median spending at $125,892, followed by lung ($99,823), breast ($87,121), leukemia ($86,776), and colorectal cancer ($76,273). Although total spending was markedly lower among those insured by Medicaid, individuals with leukemia ($52,591) and lymphoma ($46,787) experienced the highest median spending. Out-of-pocket spending was substantially higher for the privately insured ($3,751 or approximately $625/month) across all cancer types, and highest for lymphomas ($4,262), breast ($4,706) and colorectal ($4,216) cancers. Conclusions: Total healthcare spending after a cancer diagnosis is significant in the working-aged population and creates a substantial out-of-pocket burden, even among those privately insured. [Table: see text]