If you are a cancer patient receiving chemotherapy, do you know everyone on your care team? You probably know your medical oncologist well, and the nurse(s) in the infusion center. Perhaps you’re on a first name basis with the reception desk personnel and the technician who draws your blood. You…more.
As the president of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kashyap Patel, MD, was troubled by the significant health care disparities faced by racial and ethnic minorities. He started to investigate how where someone lives – down to their individual zip code…more.
The diagnosis can be frightening enough. Hearing you or your child has cancer, a rare disease or other chronic health condition can send the heart sinking and the mind spinning. Is the condition treatable? What do treatments entail? How will your quality of life be impacted? Then comes the financial…more.
As part of our series on Food and Transportation Disparities, Real World Health Care reached out to Leeann Medina-Martinez, LCSW, CancerCare’s Disparities Program coordinator. CancerCare is the leading national organization providing free, professional support services and information to help people manage the emotional, practical and financial challenges of cancer. We…more.
Most of us are taught from an early age that to be healthy, we must eat healthy foods. Poor diets – those in which people consume excess fat, sugar and calories – are linked to a range of health problems including obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and hypertension. For some…more.
Financial toxicity describes the problems cancer patients experience related to the cost of treatment. Medical financial hardship is increasingly common with many cancer patients due to the difficulty of paying medical bills, high level of financial distress and need to delay or forgo care altogether because of cost. The economic…more.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in the environment where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. SDOH contribute to wide health disparities…more.
As President and Chief Executive Officer of the HealthWell Foundation, I am acutely aware of the significant cost barriers that keep patients from accessing life-changing, and oftentimes lifesaving, medications. Decades of scientific breakthroughs have created a world in which many patients with chronic illnesses have real hope for relief of…more.
