第2909期:Reduce cancer treatment costs

Medical care in the US costs more than it does in any other developed country.

美国的医疗费用比任何其他发达国家都要高。

That means surviving cancer can empty a patient's bank account.

这意味着要想治好癌症可能会掏空患者的银行账户。

When Tori Geib got her cancer diagnosis, she thought she would be okay financially.

托里·盖布确诊癌症时，她以为自己经济上不会有问题。

I just went on what they said to do. And at the time, I had really great private insurance.

我只是按照他们说的去做。当时我有非常丰厚的私人保险。

Three weeks later, her great private insurance stopped covering her medication.

三周后，她丰厚的私人保险不再承保她的药物。

I said well, how much will this be just to get through for the month. And they said for the one-month supply it's 11,000 dollars.

我说每个月要花多少钱。他们说每个月的药物要花费11000美元。

That's about average for new cancer therapy in the US. But to make the situation even worse, it was only one of thirteen drugs Geib needed.

这大约是美国新癌症疗法的平均费用水平。但更糟的是，盖布需要十三种药物，而这只是其中一种需要的花销。

The astronomical cost of cancer treatment causes many patients in the US to try to save money at the expense of their health.

癌症治疗的高昂费用使得许多美国患者以牺牲健康为代价来省钱。

One in four cancer patients actually report engaging in some risky behavior to try to save on cost, so either skipping refills of medications or even splitting doses.

四分之一的癌症患者报告称为了节省费用而采取了一些冒险行为，比如不按处方买药续服，甚至掰分药剂量服用。

A financial counsellor at the Cancer Center helped Geib find a way to pay for her treatment.

癌症中心的一名财务顾问帮助盖布找到了支付治疗费用的方法。

We've helped over 30,000 patients gain access to grant funding or manufacture assistance program with a total value of over 500 million dollars.

我们已帮助超过3万名患者获得补助资金或生产援助计划，总价值超过5亿美元。

The hospital also introduced a new program that keeps these expensive medications from going to waste. Patients can now return pills they don't need.

医院还推出了一个新项目，防止这些昂贵药物被浪费。患者现在可以退回他们不需要的药片。

We put that medication into essentially a repository, where we wait for the next patient that has a financial need, so that we can re-dispense that medication to another cancer patient.

我们将这些药物存入一个专门的储存库，等待下一位有经济需求的患者出现，以便再次配药给其他癌症患者。

The program helps patients focus on getting well, and not stressing about their finances.

该计划帮助患者专注于康复治疗，而不用为财务状况担忧。

There's so much stress that goes along with this diagnosis. And you really want to try to minimize that stress along with the cancer.

确诊癌症带来了巨大的压力。你真的要努力在对抗癌症的同时将压力降到最低。

And this is one thing that has been given to me that I'm so thankful and grateful for.

我能够受到这样的帮助，对此我满怀感恩。

Kennerly Shah says the goal is to start out small and then to expand the program to cover medications for other diseases.

肯纳利·沙阿表示目标是从小规模开始，然后将该计划扩展至覆盖其他疾病的药物。

Another goal is to provide a model that other institutions can copy. So more patients can afford their treatments. 

另一个目标是提供一个可供其他机构复制的模式，这样更多患者就能负担得起治疗费用。