The Financial Toxicity Tumor Board: 5-Year Update on Practice and a Guide to Implementation.

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Health Services Research
• Health Economics

Background:

• Financial toxicity is a significant barrier to cancer care outcomes.
• Previous interventions primarily focused on individual patient support.
• The Financial Toxicity Tumor Board (FTTB) is the first institutional-level intervention for cancer-related financial distress.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report on the function and outcomes of the FTTB over five years.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of an institutional-level intervention in mitigating financial toxicity.

Main Methods:

• The FTTB operates as a multidisciplinary tumor board addressing financial distress.
• Evolved to disease-focused meetings and an Archetype system for case categorization.
• Expanded pharmacy-based patient assistance program (PAP) to cover broader cancer care costs.

Main Results:

• Over 70 cases presented to the tumor board resulted in immediate patient solutions and systemic changes.
• The FTTB's PAP provided over $10.3 million in copay assistance to 9,321 patients.
• Free medications valued at over $392 million were distributed to 16,495 patients.

Conclusions:

• The FTTB model demonstrates that systemic interventions significantly improve financial toxicity.
• The tumor board and PAP arms achieved substantial improvements in patient financial well-being.
• The FTTB model represents a potential new standard of care for managing financial toxicity in oncology.