LUNGevity and Family Reach Announce New Partnership to Help Lung Cancer Patients Financially Plan for their Care

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- LUNGevity Foundation, the nation's leading lung cancer-focused nonprofit organization, today announced its partnership with Family Reach, a national organization dedicated to eradicating the financial challenges that accompany a cancer diagnosis. This partnership will give lung cancer patients/survivors and their families access to Family Reach's preventive solutions within the Financial Treatment Program, which include financial education, resource navigation, and financial planning.

Financial barriers directly impact patients' survival rates because they affect their ability to access care and adhere to lifesaving treatment. One in five families affected by cancer report losing more than 40% of their annual income due to work disruptions, and 42% of insured cancer patients report a significant or catastrophic financial burden. As a result, patients resort to care-altering strategies to save money. Family Reach provides individualized resources to help relieve anxiety and create a realistic plan for the potential high cost of care.

"At Family Reach, we believe a patient's race, zip code, or income level should not influence their chance of survival," says Carla Tardif, CEO of Family Reach. "Our priority is to provide early and equitable access to the Financial Treatment Program by integrating our program into cancer care delivery at health systems across the U.S. We are grateful to LUNGevity for helping to bring our services to lung cancer patients and their families so that all patients have the same chance to live with cancer."

LUNGevity and Family Reach will also be able to better understand and meet the unique financial needs of lung cancer patients through this partnership. Family Reach will evaluate the financial and emotional impact of their services when intervention takes place at different points in time after medical therapy begins. This will help both organizations better serve lung cancer patients and their families in the future.

"We are thrilled to partner with Family Reach to help families manage the financial burden of a lung cancer diagnosis," says Andrea Ferris, president and CEO of LUNGevity Foundation. "Family Reach's financial services are proven effective to decrease families' financial distress. We are grateful for their partnership that will help improve lung cancer patient outcomes through financial planning."

The Financial Treatment Program

Through the Financial Treatment Program, patients will have access to its preventive solutions such as financial education, which includes the Financial Guidebook for Cancer; financial planning, which pairs families with Certified Financial Planners for pro-bono consulting; and resource navigation, including debt consolidation, housing counseling, and in-kind support for transportation, housing, and food insecurities.

Access to Family Reach's Financial Treatment Program can improve patients' quality of life and help reduce anxiety. Many families do not expect the financial burden of cancer to affect them until it is too late. The financial resources that Family Reach provides help patients see they are not alone in experiencing financial distress and empower them to ask for help. Relieving this debilitating stress can grant patients clarity to focus on their medical therapy, and ultimately optimize patient outcomes.

The partnership is being sponsored by Amgen, a biotechnology company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California.

Patients and their families looking to access Family Reach's portfolio of services should apply at www.LUNGevity.org/familyreach.

About LUNGevity Foundation

LUNGevity Foundation is the nation's leading lung cancer organization focused on improving outcomes for people with lung cancer through research, policy initiatives, education, support, and engagement for patients, survivors, and caregivers. LUNGevity seeks to make an immediate impact on quality of life and survivorship for everyone touched by the disease—while promoting health equity by addressing disparities throughout the care continuum. LUNGevity works tirelessly to advance research into early detection and more effective treatments, provide information and educational tools to empower patients and their caregivers, promote impactful public policy initiatives, and amplify the patient voice through research and engagement. The organization provides an active community for patients and survivors—and those who help them live longer and better lives.

Comprehensive resources include a medically vetted and patient-centric website, a toll-free HELPLine for support, the International Lung Cancer Survivorship Conference, and an easy-to-use Clinical Trial Finder, among other tools. All of these programs are to achieve our vision—a world where no one dies of lung cancer. LUNGevity Foundation is proud to be a four-star Charity Navigator organization.

Please visit www.LUNGevity.org to learn more.

About Family Reach

Family Reach is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating the financial barriers that accompany a cancer diagnosis. Working with more than 400 top-tier hospitals and cancer centers nationwide, Family Reach provides immediate financial assistance, education, and navigation to families before they hit critical breaking points. By working through hospital social workers, their efficient, solutions-driven model bridges the gap between hospital and home and quickly provides the vital support families need to stay afloat. Family Reach's innovative and collaborative multi-pronged solution is designed to improve the patient's financial experience during cancer treatment, manage debt and household material hardship, and maintain access to treatment.

For more information about Family Reach, please visit www.familyreach.org. Follow @FamilyReach on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

About Lung Cancer in the US

• About 1 in 16 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime.
• More than 235,000 people in the US will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year.
• About 60%-65% of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people who have never smoked or are former smokers.
• Lung cancer takes more lives than the next three leading cancers (colorectal, breast, and prostate) combined.
• Only 21% of all people diagnosed with lung cancer will survive 5 years or more, BUT if it's caught before it spreads, the chance of 5-year survival improves dramatically.

SOURCE LUNGevity Foundation