For patients with a serious cancer diagnosis, their world can be spinning out of control. They have a new major emotional challenge, and a time and energy drain, as well as the obvious actual medical implications. But have you thought about the financial implications of getting a cancer diagnosis?

Even with insurance, 1/3 of these patients blow through their savings in treatment and 1/4 raid their retirement accounts. Even if they go into remission, they are very financially damaged from their treatment journey. Cancer patients are 2.6 times more likely to file for bankruptcy, and up to 73% of cancer patients may experience financial hardship.

If cancer patients meet with a financial planner early on, they can get ahead of many of those problems, and also have a trusted advisor to help them during a very dark time.

Did you know that there are nonprofit partners who implement this work? They can help cancer patients with optimizing their health insurance, and pharma insurance, in addition to financial planning assistance. As described in a manuscript in the Journal of Oncology Practice, a research study was conducted where they tracked patients with cancer, to assess the impact of this financial planning + other treatment intervention. This intervention increased survival and increased quality of life too.

Why else is this important?

There are additional risks nobody is talking about when a major medical diagnosis appears in a family, and that’s the risk of divorce or abandonment. There’s an extra potential impact if the diagnosis strikes the wife, this was studied in a manuscript in the journal Cancer. In the case of a wife receiving a serious medical diagnosis, she had a 21% chance of having her husband abandon her, vs only 3% of husbands experiencing medical abandonment. That means over 85% of abandoned spouses are the wives.

Helping reduce the challenges and burdens of dealing with a severe diagnosis, by implementing a similar intervention as the one described in the Journal of Oncology Practice research study with non-profit partners, could help reduce the rates of medical abandonment / divorce.

How do I get help?

If you have received a cancer diagnosis, you can receive pro bono financial planning help through the Financial Planning For Cancer program, and the program also includes being matched with a Patient Advocate Foundation case manager to assist with health insurance and benefits related issues.