Financial Toxicity from Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Expenses in Heart Failure: ACC21 - Simultaneous Publication

Co-led by Stephen Wang, MD, MPH is our study highlighting the financial challenges out-of-pocket healthcare expenses pose on patients with heart failure and their families. The study is being presented at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions, 2021 and has been simultaneously published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The study found that among families of patients with heart failure, 1 in 7 experienced a high financial burden, defined as spending over 20% of their annual income on out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Insurance premiums and medication costs represented the largest categories of out-of-pocket health spending. The risk of high financial burden extended to 1 in 4 low-income families.

Additionally, 1 in 10 low-income families spent 40% or more of their annual post-subsistence income on healthcare expenses, a catastrophic financial burden defined by the WHO. After accounting for differences in measured features, low-income families, and those with private insurance compared with public insurance were disproportionately affected by financial toxicity from healthcare costs.

With emerging therapeutic pathways that increasingly rely on more expensive medications, there is an urgent need to mitigate out-of-pocket healthcare spending in this population. Find out more here.