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When Deb Maskens was diagnosed with kidney cancer, she was encouraged to learn that a new chemotherapy drug was available to her that could be taken orally, in the comfort of her own home. She soon found out, however, that undergoing treatment at home isn’t nearly as simple as it sounds.

For one, the added convenience often comes at a potentially debilitating cost: over $6,000 a month for Maskens’ pills – which, thankfully for her, were covered by private insurance.

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“You can’t just leave the hospital and go to your drug store and pick it up, because it’s going to cost you $6,000,” says Maskens.

“So you have to figure out, ‘How on earth am I going to pay for it?’ Are you on insurance? If you aren’t, you have to apply to the Trillium Drug Program. It’s a very complicated system of figuring out if they’re going to give you any money at all. For a lot of patients, it can be four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks before you can even get the pills.”