Cancer: A Cost Analysis

So, one of the more enjoyable aspects of Charlie’s treatment (only because all you can do is laugh) are the medical bills. Each one holds a cornucopia of surprises, grimaces, laughs and outright hilarity. The latest coming from Charlie’s first lumbar puncture of the year on January 3rd (yes, we just got the bill for that). This visit included, but was not limited to: accessing Charlie’s port, propofol to put him under, spinal fluid withdrawal, intrathecal methotrexate injection, vincristine injection, plus room occupation and 5 hours of time with a mixture of about 10 different professionals. All of this for the low, low cost of around $3,000 (billed to insurance). “Not too bad!” you might say. And I would whole-heartedly agree, especially considering that they are saving my kid’s life.

The fun comes when you examine some of the line-item costs from this visit:

$17.53 - for one Tegaderm
$18.53 - for the butterfly 22g needle
$552.66 - for Vincristine
$718.43 - for IT Methotrexate
$1200 - for the use of the room



Now, the picture above is a Tegaderm patch. It is, for all intents and purposes a band-aid. We use them to apply a numbing cream to Charlie’s port before he is accessed and the hospital uses them to hold his “butterfly” needle in place after access. Handy little things, tegaderms are. Not so sure they are worth $17.53 though. Let us examine . . .

Charlie’s medications for this visit are worth about 31 and 41 tegaderms for vincristine and methotrexate, respectively. That seems like a bargain to me.

The room rate for Charlie’s visit, a measly 68 tegaderms.

In fact, I know from experience that I can feed a family of four (two adults and two kids, aged 4 and 1) at McDonalds for the price of one tegaderm. Somebody get Sally Struthers on the phone.

And assuming that one tegaderm weighs about 3 grams, I get a commodity price of around $180 per troy ounce of tegaderm. That places it at more than a tenth of the price of gold and about 4.5 times the price of silver. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to put tegaderm in my 401K.

After one of Charlie’s appointments a while back, a nurse handed us a sweaty wad of tegaderms to have at the house so we can numb Charlie’s port before clinic and ER visits. Had I known then what I know now, I would have turned around and sold the tegaderms back to the hospital for $15 a piece (a 15% savings for them) and funded Charlie’s next appointment. Live and learn.