This clinical trial studies whether an unrestricted cash payment program can be used to improve financial and clinical outcomes in early-stage cancer patients with financial concerns. A cancer diagnosis can have poor financial outcomes, and the cost of cancer treatment can lead to high medical debt and financial hardships for the patient and family. Financial hardship during cancer treatment is associated with adverse outcomes including poorer quality of life, lower treatment compliance, more aggressive use of hospital-based care, and worse survival. Newly diagnosed cancer patients with financial concerns may avoid treatment entirely so that they can continue to work and maintain income, provide for their families, or pay rent. An unrestricted cash payment program provides patients with a preloaded cash card once monthly. The patients can choose what to use the card to pay for and may include items like food, rent, or utilities. This provides a period of guaranteed income for the patients and may prevent them from falling into poverty and improve financial and clinical outcomes.
Study sponsor and potential other locations can be found on ClinicalTrials.gov for NCT06771739.
Locations matching your search criteria
United States
Washington
Seattle
Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer ConsortiumStatus: Approved
Contact: Veena Shankaran
Phone: 206-667-7844
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
I. Feasibility.
SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:
I. Financial hardship.
II. Treatment nonadherence.
III. Unplanned emergency department (ED)/hospital admissions.
IV. Food and housing insecurity.
V. Quality of life.
EXPLORATORY OBJECTIVES:
I. Cash card expenses: we will track payments on the cash cards and categorize by type of expense (e.g. grocery, other retail, gas).
II. Supplemental security income (SSI) and social security disability income (SSDI): we will have a question on the 3- and 6-month follow up surveys to ask participants if the cash payments made them ineligible for SSI/SSDI benefits.
III. Participant experience: we will conduct semi-structured interviews will all participants to determine their experience with the study, challenges with the cash cards, impact of the amount provided, any gaps in financial assistance that could be filled by financial navigation.
OUTLINE: Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 arms.
ARM A: Patients receive a $1000 preloaded cash card once monthly for 3 months.
ARM B: Patients receive a $100 preloaded cash card once monthly for 3 months.
After completion of study intervention, patients are followed up 3 months and 6 months post randomization.
Trial PhaseNo phase specified
Trial Typehealth services research
Lead OrganizationFred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer Consortium
Principal InvestigatorVeena Shankaran
