Dr Karen van Caulil Discusses Employers' Concerns About Rising Cancer Costs

The cost of oncology care has increased significantly in recent years, leading employers to worry about how they can provide consistent benefits for employees with cancer and their family members, according to Karen van Caulil, PhD, president and CEO of the Florida Health Care Coalition.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What do employers view as the biggest challenge with oncology care?

Well, the cost and quality go hand in hand, but I would have to say that the top concern is the cost. We’ve been looking at the cost of care for cancer patients and we took some data recently from 2010, 2011, and 2012 and averaged it; and 2013, 2014, and 2015 and averaged it, and saw an overall increase of 70% in the cost of medical and pharmaceutical expenses for cancer patients.

It was about 62% increase for breast cancer patients, I think 65% for prostate cancer patients, so that has to top the list in terms of concerns because it’s really, with the trajectory of the cost increase, a lot of employers are really concerned about being able to provide the rich benefits that they have for so long for their employees and their family members.