Dr John Fox Discusses Financial Toxicity Associated With Multidrug Regimens for Multiple Myeloma

With an increase in the use of 3- and 4-drug regimens in multiple myeloma, providers are going to need to communicate the out-of-pocket costs when presenting treatment options so that patients can make an informed decision, explained John Fox, MD, MHA, vice president of Clinical Transformation at Spectrum Health.

Transcript

With 3- and 4-drug regimens becoming more widely used in multiple myeloma, how it this impacting financial toxicity associated with the disease?

With those 3- and 4-drug regimens, patients are having more and more out-of-pocket (OOP) costs. Thankfully, most people have an OOP maximum in Medicare, especially on the Part D, or oral drug, side. So, understanding what those benefits are is critical, and as we’ve been talking about today, there’s a lack of comparative information around the relative benefits of 1 3-drug regimen versus another 3-drug regimen, and there are different OOP costs for those patients.

So, increasingly, we’re going to need to understand what those are and present those to patients at the same time we present the treatment options so they can make a decision. A physician who prescribes a regimen a patient can’t afford and doesn’t know about it in advance is not being an effective patient advocate.