Table 1.

Summary of recommendations for addressing medical financial hardship

Audience	Recommendation
Cancer care providers	Conduct routine screening with validated instruments at all visits
	Document referrals for financial hardship and social needs and whether and how they are addressed
Cancer centers	Require comprehensive screening throughout cancer treatment and connecting patients to services
	Enhance partnerships with community safety net organizations
	Advocate for health policies that benefit patients and their families
	Record reasons eligible patients decline clinical trial participation and drop out prematurely
	Collect information about financial hardship in clinical trials and consider inclusion in adverse event reporting
Health policy	Increase options for comprehensive health insurance coverage
	Implement caps on patient out-of-pocket expenses
	Include financial hardship screening and connection with services as quality measures
	Require assessment of patient financial hardship and social needs as part of evaluation of value-based payment models
Research and surveillance	Develop validated financial hardship instruments for use at the point of care and integration in electronic health records
	Collect financial information prior to diagnosis, potentially through data linkages
	Evaluate interrelationship of financial hardship and social needs
	Assess associations of medical financial hardship and quality of cancer care, including diagnostic and treatment delays and completion of all recommended treatment and survivorship care
	Evaluate short- and long-term health effects of medical financial hardship, including health-related quality of life, cancer recurrence, and survival following diagnosis
	Evaluate the economic, social, and health effects of patient medical financial hardship on family and informal caregivers
	Conduct rigorous evaluation of value-based payment models to inform care delivery and health policy