Tag Archive for: myeloma costs

Will Telemedicine Mitigate Financial Toxicity for Myeloma Patients?

Will Telemedicine Mitigate Financial Toxicity for Myeloma Patients? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo

With the entry of telemedicine into the multiple myeloma care toolkit, there are some real benefits to the cost of care visits. Dr. Sarah Holstein outlines some of the financial benefits that she’s seen for her patients – and how the logistics of scheduling appointments has changed.

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Transcript:

Dr. Sarah Holstein

So, there’s definitely quite a bit of financial toxicity associated with being a patient who has myeloma. There of course is the cost of the drugs and treatments themselves, but there’s also the personal time cost. So, the cost that it takes to perhaps take a half day off of work or a full day of work to see your provider in person, and the flexibility that telemedicine allows, namely being able to do your appointment from either the privacy of your own home or in some cases the privacy of your own office or even your own car, really allows patients to keep going about their business without having to take all that time off to come travel. There’s the cost associated with gas mileage in some cases, costs associated with parking, although thankfully, that’s not a cost that’s occurred here at Nebraska Medicine. But I certainly know that that can be an issue at other institutions and can really add up for patients over time. So, it’s really been so much easier for patients to get in to see me even when my schedule is fairly full, because they don’t have to think about, “Well, I don’t need to leave work an hour, try to go over my lunch break,” or something like that, they can just schedule it and do it from their office.

I think it’s been a good thing for patients and hopefully is cutting down costs for them.