The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has released a policy statement addressing financial barriers that may prevent cancer patients from participating in clinical trials.
The four main recommendations in ASCO’s policy statement are:
- Payers should create clear, consistent, streamlined, and transparent policies regarding clinical trial coverage.
- Patients should receive easy-to-understand information about potential out-of-pocket costs.
- “Ethically appropriate” financial compensation for out-of-pocket costs should be allowed.
- Researchers should be incentivized to investigate and “better characterize” costs incurred by cancer patients in clinical trials as well as identify ways to “mitigate the risk of trial-associated financial hardship.”
ASCO’s full policy statement, “Addressing Financial Barriers to Patient Participation in Clinical Trials,” is available on the Journal of Clinical Oncology website.
SOURCE: Winkfield KM et al. J Clin Oncol. 2018 Sep 13:JCO1801132. doi: 10.1200/JCO.18.01132.