Cost of chemotherapy

The right chemotherapy for you depends on your health condition and other medical considerations. The four types of chemotherapy are:¹

Curative chemotherapy: This is designed to target and destroy the cancer, usually without the help of other treatments.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: This can be used to help shrink the cancer before surgery to help make the surgical procedure more successful.

Adjuvant chemotherapy: This is useful when other treatments, like surgery and radiotherapy (radiation therapy), have been used to help destroy the cancer.

Palliative chemotherapy: This isn’t usually used to cure cancer. Instead, it is used to reduce the cancer’s size and limit growth. This treatment can be used for months or even years.

The specifics of your treatment, such as the type, dose and length of your chemotherapy, can depend on:¹

• The type of cancer and what stage it is at
• The type of chemo you’re receiving and the purpose
• Your general health
• How well the cancer is responding to treatment
• The severity of the side effects.

Your oncologist, doctor or healthcare team will decide on the best treatment cycles for you. Depending on test results and how the treatment progresses, your doctor may make changes to your treatment plan. This could prolong or shorten your treatment time.

Private hospital cover can provide cover for chemotherapy, providing you have the right level of cover. Chemotherapy falls under the ‘Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy for cancer’ clinical category, which is a minimum requirement for Bronze, Silver, and Gold tier policies. Depending on the type of cancer and treatment, you may require additional clinical categories to be included in your policy, which may only be a minimum requirement for Silver, and Gold tier policies. If you’re unsure about the specifics of your cover or which clinical categories you may need to include, check your policy documents or speak to one of our health insurance experts for further details.

Private health insurance provides financial assistance for the cost of cancer care as a private patient. Being a private patient in a private hospital has benefits, including:

• Avoiding public hospital waiting times
• Choice of specialist and clinic
• Flexibility for appointment times.

If you’re taking out health insurance for the first time, it’s important to be aware of waiting periods. Generally, you need to serve a two-month waiting period before you’re able to make a claim. The main exception to this is if you have a pre-existing condition (for example, you were diagnosed with cancer before you bought a policy). For pre-existing conditions, the waiting period is generally 12 months.

Medicare can cover the costs of chemotherapy performed as a public patient through the public health system and contribute to the costs of procedures performed through private health services.

There are a few downsides to receiving treatment through the public system. Public patients have less flexibility regarding who treats them and when than private patients. Also, public hospitals can have long waiting lists due to high demand. This means you could be waiting weeks or months for a treatment that could help save your life.