Navigating Financial Relief During Breast Cancer Treatment: A Personal Journey (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Well, in June of 2014, I had a mammogram and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It is an invasive ductal carcinoma, which is, and I also have very aggressive type. So knowing that we are going to have very, very many medical bills, I was to have surgery, all of this really hits you when you're on a limited income and on Medicare. So basically, these are just some of the things that I've had to, you know, had in my mind about financial problems.

Speaker 2: We had a lot of conversations about finances, how we were going to pay for surgery costs, port placement costs, chemotherapy costs, medication costs associated with her cancer diagnosis. And so one of the things we were trying to do is figure out what their financial resources were. And so I called the financial resource department and they told me about this program. And they said, well, let's see if your parents are eligible for the MFA program. As an employee and as a caretaker, I had never heard of the MFA program before. And they said, this is a program that we see what their income is and then we see what they're eligible for. And so it took about five minutes on the phone with them before they came back and said that mom was eligible for 100% medication and financial assistance for the next year.

Speaker 3: It was definitely a sense of relief. Definitely. I have not had to worry about any of the medical bills. I mean, like no medical bills, no medication bills.

Speaker 1: So therefore, it really has left me more time to just, just, just try to recover. I would just recommend anyone that has financial problems or has a lot of medical bills that they would contact their financial assistance program and ask if there is anything available to them because it can make a big difference in your recovery.