[Press Release] (19 Oct, 2020) In order to alleviate the heavy economic burden of self-financed cancer drugs on cancer patients and the hefty work pressure of doctors in public hospitals, the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society (HKACS) has launched a new "Cash Rebate Programme" to create a mutually beneficial drug funding model for patients, doctors and pharmaceutical companies through the joint efforts of all the relevant parties. After purchasing self-financed cancer drugs in pharmacies of the Hospital Authority (HA) under the doctor's recommendation, patients can then apply for cash rebate through HKACS to mitigate their financial burden. Since its launch in December last year, the Programme has benefited over 140 cancer patients. The pledged of the Programme is HK$80 million, of which more than HK$7.2 million was disbursed to the successful applicants. HKACS hopes that more pharmaceutical companies will join and support the Programme.
Mrs Agnes Wong, Chairman of the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society's Betterment Fund Committee, said that the Prof. H.C. Ho Memorial Medical Assistance Programme was established in 2006 with the support of private fund-raising, funds, charitable funds, enterprises and pharmaceutical companies' donations to assist cancer patients in purchasing self-financed non-safety-net drugs under the HA. The scheme has so far provided funding for more than 6,000 cancer patients in need, involving drug funding of HK$400 million. At the end of last year, the scheme added the "Cash Rebate" Programme to provide further assistance, under which patients with HA oncology doctors' referral and/or passing the medical social workers' financial assessment can apply for this programme.
Dr Ashley CK Cheng, Advisor of Prof. H.C. Ho Memorial Medical Assistance Programme, supports the Cash Rebate Programme. He said that traditional cancer drug funding programmes are mostly introduced on the basis of "buy one get one free" or "buy two get one free". Patients who have passed the financial assessment (means-test) often need to buy one or more drugs at full cost in pharmacies of the HA before they can get one free donation of drugs. The cycle of making full payment and applying for grants repeats again and again during the treatment, giving rise to enormous amount of administrative work burden on medical staff to record clearly each time whether the patients' purchase has already been funded or not.
Dr Cheng said that the Cash Rebate Programme, with the cash rebate mechanism for drugs funding, has greatly reduced the workloads of the medical staff. Eligible patients participating in Cash Rebate Programme just need to submit their purchase receipts from the HA Pharmacy to HKACS, and then the staff will make the calculations on how much cash rebate the patients can get. This can not only reduce the medical staff's administration work, but also enable the doctors to devote more time to handling patients' medical care and needs, providing patients with direct financial aids.
At present, 3 pharmaceutical companies have participated in the Cash Rebate Programme, providing 3 different cancer drugs applicable to 13 treatment indications under particular clinical conditions, including lung cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, urothelial carcinoma, melanoma, head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma and adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. It is hoped that more drugs will be made available under the Programme.
Ms Gloria KW Chan, the HKACS Chief Executive Officer, notes that drugs for cancer treatment are ever advancing, but not everyone can afford it. For instance, one of the immunotherapeutic drugs under the Cash Rebate Programme requires a treatment course of 2 years with the total drug cost of more than HK$1.3 million, and it may cause a finance burden to the patient without any financial support. Under the Cash Rebate Programme, each eligible patient will receive a cash subsidy of HK$600,000 which equals more than 40% of their original drug costs. Since its launch at the end of 2019, over 140 cancer patients have benefited from the Programme. Among them, about 90% of the responding participants agreed or extremely agreed that the Programme had helped them reduce their financial burden and mental stress, while 98% of the patients considered that this charity programme was helpful to the beneficiaries.
Mrs. Wong added that with the support of the pharmaceutical companies, some of the drugs under the Cash Rebate Programme do not require financial assessment. Those who wish to participate in the Programme must be referred by doctors in public hospitals' clinical oncology department, medical oncology department or haematological oncology department. Patients can consult their attending doctors for details.
Mr Ho, a lung cancer patient who has participated in the Cash Rebate Programme, said, "It is difficult to afford paying tens of thousands of dollars for immunotherapy every month. Now that through this cash rebate arrangement, I can get subsidy for the drug expenditures, thereby increasing the number of injections I can take."
HKACS hopes that more pharmaceutical companies, upon learning the benefits of the Cash Rebate Programme, will participate in it so that the Programme can be further extended to help more cancer patients.
