Financial Toxicity as an Unforeseen Side Effect of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

By Misty Hobbs

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Citation

Hobbs M. Financial toxicity as an unforeseen side effect of inflammatory bowel disease. HPHR. 2021;28.

DOI:10.54111/0001/bb3

Financial Toxicity as an Unforeseen Side Effect of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

A 32-year-old male with a history of ulcerative colitis diagnosed at age 26 presented to our emergency department with an episode of bloody diarrhea, marked abdominal cramping, subjective fever, and nausea. Work-up, including the consideration of an infectious cause, revealed an acute ulcerative colitis flare, with severe proctocolitis visualized with flexible sigmoidoscopy. He had no other past medical history besides tobacco use, for which he was recently “cutting back.” Further history elicited that he had been experiencing acute flares 2-3 times per year since his diagnosis, which caused many missed days from his work as a waiter and loss of vacation time. At one point, he was let go from a job due to these missed days and subsequently went temporarily without insurance. He had planned to begin stepped up treatment with biologics at the time, but could no longer afford it. In total, he accumulated around $10,000 in debt for his medical expenses. By this current admission, he had secured a new job, for which he was to begin before this flare prevented him from doing so. He was given IV steroids and supportive care, and ultimately discharged with an oral steroid taper and scheduled infliximab infusions.

“Financial toxicity” refers to the idea of patients dealing with cost implications as a part of their disease experience. It was originally coined by S. Yousuf Zafar, MD, and Amy Abernethy, MD, from the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina, to describe an “adverse event” increasingly experienced by patients with cancer. There are two aspects of financial toxicity: objective financial burden and subjective financial distress. More is published on objective financial burden, with nonadherence as one of the best-studied outcomes resulting from higher costs. Subjective financial distress has been linked to changes in treatment-related decision making, with patients deciding for or against treatments based on primarily on cost. Like our patient in the vignette, these cancer patients are spending their savings, canceling vacations, and working more unintended hours to be able to afford their care.1

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a heterogeneous group of chronic inflammatory disorders, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, that affects nearly 2 million Americans2. Treatment tends to be multi-faceted and disease course tends to be variable, with a large portion of IBD patients requiring costly hospitalization (24%-83%), surgery (39%-82%), or aggressive medical therapy (39%-82%). Furthermore, IBD is often diagnosed during the most economically productive years of adulthood such that nearly a third of costs stem from indirect sources, including lost productivity.3 The relatively nebulous nature of these indirect or “hidden” costs make them easier to overlook, and the downstream effects of these losses are difficult to calculate. For example, economic distress may lead to financial coping behaviors (e.g. skipping medications due to cost) and psychosocial distress may lead to increased psychosomatic complaints or behavior change, thus further increasing costs4. For these reasons, many patients amass a significant financial burden of care, with many costs still out-of-pocket.

While providers may ultimately have limited control over the cost of treatment, a component of their care should include monitoring the burden of these costs given the negative clinical outcomes that they impose on patients. Universal financial toxicity screening has been proposed for cancer patients as standard of care and may be beneficial for IBD patients as well5. This is especially true given the complex and chronic nature of IBD treatment. Identification of high-risk patients allows for triage to financial resources and individual case management that can improve IBD care delivery and prevent downstream effects5. For example, in our vignette, intensified management with biologics – which was initially deferred due to cost, ironically – may have prevented his acute flare. More specific, streamlined consideration of financial realities a priori could have prevented a paradoxical increase in cost in the form of another hospitalization and more lost time. While concern over cost is not novel, what is novel is the degree of attention focused on conversations and decision-making as a major locus of control6. Of course, patient and health care worker awareness is the first step toward addressing and decreasing the adverse effects of financial toxicity.

References

  1. Zafar SY, Abernethy AP. Financial toxicity, Part I: a new name for a growing problem. Oncology (Williston Park). 2013 Feb;27(2):80-1, 149. PubMed PMID: 23530397; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4523887.

  2. Molodecky NA, Soon IS, Rabi DM, Ghali WA, Ferris M, Chernoff G, Benchimol EI, Panaccione R, Ghosh S, Barkema HW, Kaplan GG. Increasing incidence and prevalence of the inflammatory bowel diseases with time, based on systematic review. Gastroenterology. 2012 Jan;142(1):46-54.e42; quiz e30. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2011.10.001. Epub 2011 Oct 14. Review. PubMed PMID: 22001864.

  3. Click B, Binion DG, Anderson AM. Predicting Costs of Care for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2017 Mar;15(3):393-395. doi: 10.1016/j.cgh.2016.11.027. Epub 2016 Dec 3. PubMed PMID: 27923719; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5316305.

  4. Sairenji T, Collins KL, Evans DV. An Update on Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Prim Care. 2017 Dec;44(4):673-692. doi: 10.1016/j.pop.2017.07.010. Epub 2017 Oct 5. Review. PubMed PMID: 29132528.

  5. Liang MI, Huh WK. Financial toxicity – An overlooked side effect. Gynecol Oncol. 2018 Jul;150(1):3-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2018.05.012. Epub 2018 May 31. PubMed PMID: 29778508.

  6. Peppercorn J. Financial Toxicity and Societal Costs of Cancer Care: Distinct Problems Require Distinct Solutions. Oncologist. 2017 Feb;22(2):123-125. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2016-0301. Epub 2017 Feb 6. PubMed PMID: 28167570; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5330709.

About the Author

Misty Hobbs

Misty Hobbs is a first-time author with the Harvard Public Health Review and a graduate of University of Kentucky College of Medicine.