Long a source of frustration for patients, the cost of parking while in cancer treatment is finally drawing national scrutiny from oncology researchers and even some hospital administrators.
‘Kicking you when you’re down’: Many cancer patients pay dearly for parking
For cancer patients, the road from diagnosis to survivorship feels like a never-ending parade of medical appointments: surgeries, bloodwork, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, scans. The routine is time-consuming and costly. So, when hospitals charge patients double-digit parking fees, patients often leave the garage demoralized.
Iram Leon vividly remembers the first time he went for a follow-up MRI appointment at Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, after he had been treated at another hospital for a brain tumor.
The medical news was good: His stage 2 tumor was stable. The financial news was not. When he sat down at the receptionist s desk to check out, Leon was confronted by a bold, red-lettered sign on the back of her computer that read: WE DO NOT VALIDATE PARKING.
Long a source of frustration for patients, the cost of parking while in cancer treatment is finally drawing national scrutiny from oncology researchers and even some hospital administrators.