Daniel J. Klein Highlights the Financial Assistance PAN Provides Patients

The funds that the Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation provides to patients are often used to help with the cost of medications, and there has been a large increase in the number of patients looking for assistance for the cost of cancer treatments, explained Daniel J. Klein, president and CEO of the PAN Foundation.

Transcript

PAN published a paper in the August 2016 issue of Evidence-Based Oncology that included an analysis of medication expenses for patients that PAN supported. What were the primary findings?

Well there were several, I think, important findings from the paper. probably the most noteworthy is that over the past 5 years we've seen just a tremendous increase in the number of patients coming to PAN for assistance with out-of-pocket costs for cancer treatments. It's surprising even to us how great a demand there is for help with deductibles, copays, coinsurance for cancer care.

What part of their cancer care did patients mainly direct their funding support?

At PAN the majority of the support we provide is for prescription medications. We also do provide premium assistance and travel assistance, but if you look at all of our funds—we operate about 50 different disease funds; over 20 are for various cancers—and by and large the funds provide help with deductibles, copays, coinsurance. And then a small number of funds provide help with insurance premiums and with travel expenses.

You know, in many instances the cost of traveling to specialized treatment centers is a significant burden for patients, so that becomes an important issues for some patients.