Impact of Phone Call About Financial Reimbursement Program on Access to Cancer Clinical Trials

There are limited financial models that address the economic hardship associated with clinical research participation and how it might restrict clinical research access. The Lazarex Foundation offers a financial reimbursement program (FRP) to help patients and caregivers cover the out-of-pocket costs associated with clinical trial participation for almost ten years. iMPACT is a pilot study to assess the overall feasibility of conducting a multi-center trial of the Lazarex sliding scale FRP among sociodemographically diverse patients of all cancer types enrolling/potentially enrolling in therapeutic clinical trials (TCTs). The study will formalize informing patients or parents/legal guardians of patients about the Lazarex sliding-scale FRP in order to evaluate whether operationalizing intensive follow-up about the Lazarex FRP improves recruitment to cancer TCTs. All patients or parents/legal guardians of patients will be offered information about the FRP at initial time of TCT discussion/consent for the iMPACT study, however, participants will be randomized 1:1 to receive an additional follow-up call about the FRP or no follow-up call (usual care). Participants who are randomized to usual care will be provided a phone number for the Lazarex Foundation that they or their parent or legal guardian may contact directly. Therefore all patients or parents/legal guardians of patients in the study have access to FRP eligibility assessment through the Lazarex Foundation. Participants or parents/legal guardians of participants will be surveyed at baseline (time of consent to iMPACT) and interviewed 30 days after consent to iMPACT. If a participant enrolls in a therapeutic clinical trial, he/she will also be given an additional survey after TCT participation and interviewed up to 90 days after TCT participation.