Legal care is vital for cancer patients.
Every year, nearly 30,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed, and 9,100 Minnesotans die from cancer. There are over 263,000 cancer survivors living in the state.
The financial toll cancer takes on these individuals and families is daunting, and has its own term: Financial Toxicity.
Financial toxicity is defined as "the detrimental effects of the excess financial strain cuased by the diagnosis of cancer on the well-being of patients, their families, and society."
Cancer's financial toxicity is the driving force behind our clients' need for legal care:
- They are caught in the precarious gap between the services of traditional legal aid and the affordability of the private bar,
- The financial spiral they're facing as a result of their cancer is something a lawyer can help with by preserving employment or securing disability benefits, and
- Sometimes legal care makes medical care possible by overturning insurance denials.
How does legal care address cancer's financial toxicity?
While cancer's financial toxicity is garnering more attention and study, what is not frequently talked about are the ways to resolve this growing problem and the impact it has on a cancer patient's life long after their treatment ends.
Free legal care services are one way to reduce risk for financial toxicity.
How and why? Many of the causes of financial toxicity– loss of employment, uncertainty about income replacement supports (Social Security, private disability benefits, access to paid leave), and wrongful insurance denials and provider billing errors– are rooted in legal issues, not medical ones. This is why having a lawyer on patient's cancer care team makes a tremendous difference in reducing their risk for financial toxicity.
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Minnesotans helped by programs
15,240
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Minnesota counties reached to date
79
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Value of free legal services provided
$25,000,000
It is a hard road doing this alone. To me you are just as important as the doctors treating me.
- A recent Cancer Legal Care client
Real Help for Real People.
Cancer Legal Care's work is grounded in the help our clients need to navigate the many legal issues that come up after a cancer diagnosis.
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Clients report CLC resolved all or most of their issues
93%
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Clients report cancer has had a profound to moderate impact on their finances
78%
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Clients wish they had been referred to CLC at the time of diagnosis.
66%
