Cancer Patients’ Wait Times Cost Billions

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BlankJanuary 3, 2007

Cancer Patients’ Wait Times Cost Billions

By BLOOMBERG NEWS

A new study says that $2.3 billion worth of time is spent in waiting rooms,

doctors’ offices, hospitals and transportation in the first year after cancer is

diagnosed. Patients with gastric and ovarian cancers lost the most time, valued

around $5,300 and $5,600 per person, compared with costs associated with skin

and prostate cancers of $300 and $800 each, according to a study in today’s

issue of The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers looked at

records from 764,000 Americans 65 years old or older who had received a

diagnosis of 11 common forms of cancer from 1995 to 2001. They estimated the

average amount of time spent seeking treatment and multiplied it by $15.23 an

hour, the median United States wage rate in 2002. The study did not look at the

value of time spent by members of a patient’s family.