Blog Post

News and events
2 MIN READ

Managing the cost of breast cancer webcast: tips and resources 16th Sept 7-8pm AEST

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
4 years ago
Hi everyone,

BCNA are holding a webcast on Thursday 16 September, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm AEST on managing the cost of breast cancer: tips and resources. 

For many people with breast cancer, the financial costs associated with treatment and care can be substantial. General day-to-day expenses continue, while you may also have to pay for specialist appointments, tests and scans, medicines and other treatments, counselling, travel and so on.

If you're unable to continue in paid work, the loss of income can also contribute to financial pressure on you and your family. Even when treatment is finished, you may still struggle financially, or you may face the longer-term impacts of ongoing care.

For some people, getting by financially is no easy task, even at the best of times. Money worries can have a big impact on how you and your family cope. Informed financial consent requires people to have information about costs and support to make informed decisions about their care. 

We will hear from Financial Counsellor at Cancer Council Victoria, Antony Mitchell who has a community focus and experience with working with a number of not for profits, and BCNA Consumer Representative Jodie Lydeker who was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer 3 years ago, and detected again in 2021. Jodie will share insight into her lived experience of the financial stress associated with the disease.

In this webcast we will explore managing the costs of breast cancer including informed financial consent, public vs private healthcare, hidden and common out-of-pocket costs, questions to ask your healthcare provider, financial wellbeing, career impacts, issues for those who live in rural and remote areas and the resources and support available to you.

To register, please follow this link, https://www.bcna.org.au/webcasts-new/managing-the-cost-of-breast-cancer-webcast-tips-and-resources/

Event Details 

When: Thursday, 16 September 2021
What Time: 07:00 PM AEST - 08:00 PM AEST
Local Times:
- WA: 5:00 PM 
- NT, SA: 6:30 PM
- QLD, ACT, NSW, TAS, VIC: 7:00 PM

Published 4 years ago
Version 1.0
event
financial-impact
financial-pressures
webcast
Anonymous's avatar
Node avatar for News and events
News and events
Follow this blog board to get notified when there's new activity

13 Comments

Sort By
Comments have been turned off for this post
  • arpie's avatar
    arpie
    Member
    4 years ago
    I had about $7000 out of pocket expenses - $3-4000 from the surgery, that I was aware of and agreed to ... but After my surgery, I was stunned to have to pay $500 towards my own pathology bill .... it’s not as if it was cosmetic or something unnecessary.  No-one could explain why there was a $500 gap. .... and then there was a $4-500 fee for attending the private hospital that I was in, as NIB didn’t have an ‘agreement’ with them!   Many of my tests/scans had a gap of between $80-100 that had to be paid every time ... and sadly, it all adds up even tho, like @Julez1958, We also have top level private cover.    :(  

    If you live outside of city areas, and have to attend specialists there, there are also fairly large gaps in accomodation costs that even the local IPTASS schemes don’t cover as much as they could .... 
     
  • Julez1958's avatar
    Julez1958
    Member
    4 years ago
    Hi in case I can’t get to this, one issue I have is the completely unrealistic amount of the scheduled fee on Medicare for procedures which is important in terms of amounts you get back from Medicare and your private health fund for surgery in the private system.
    I am in a private health fund which covered 100 percent of my accommodation costs in a private hospital for my mastectomy and DIEP reconstruction  but I had huge out of pocket expenses mainly as the Medicare schedule fee was so ridiculously low  for the various Doctors and their procedures ( including the anaesthetist) .
    I wrote to my local Federal MP who is part of the current ruling party and he said among other things “ you could have had your surgery in the public hospital system  for free “.
    Apart from the fact that if all private patients had their surgery in the public system it would not be able to cope, this didn’t address the fact that the Medicare schedule fee for breast cancer surgery is completely inadequate having regard to the real cost of a competent surgeon running a practice.
Related Content

Pain Management

Has anyone been on palexia?  I am on it at present but not getting any relief, I wondered if it is just me as the pain is driving me nutty, or should I say nuttier than usual and of course it's Boxing...
iserbrownSide effects
7 years ago
545Views
0likes
35Comments

Pain management

I have been suffering terrible body pain particularly in my back and hips down into the legs. They started to put my on targin 5/2.5mg morning and evening. First days it seemed to help I felt normal a...
SteffiOZ22General discussions
4 years ago
101Views
0likes
3Comments