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The Federal Knowledge Center for Healthcare (KCE) recommends in a new report that the so-called waiting time for breast cancer patients to be able to take out outstanding balance insurance should be severely curtailed. The proposals to shorten the current waiting time could potentially have positive consequences for half of the women with breast cancer, according to the KCE.
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jvhSource: BELGIAN
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Individuals with a chronic illness or those who have been treated for cancer may encounter difficulties when seeking outstanding balance insurance. This is because the health condition of the borrower is assessed. In order not to exclude people with health problems, our country has had a “right to be forgotten” since 2019. This means that people who have been cured of cancer for at least ten years can take out insurance without having to pay additional premiums. In addition, there are also various so-called “reference grids” that provide for more relaxed conditions.
The KCE was charged with regularly reviewing these reference grids, in the context of medical progress. The Knowledge Center has now done this for breast cancer in situ – a tumor that is limited to the tissue in which it originated – and invasive breast cancer at an early stage (carcinoma stage I or II).
Currently, for breast cancer in situ, a waiting period of one year after the end of treatment applies, for the other stages the waiting period is ten years.
In collaboration with the Cancer Registry, KCE researchers examined 93,368 breast cancer diagnoses: 10,452 with in situ cancer and 82,916 with stage I or II carcinomas. In the in situ cases, no excess mortality was observed up to fourteen years after diagnosis. That is why the KCE proposes to abolish the waiting time for those people altogether. For small and early invasive carcinomas (stage I), the survival curves approach those of the general population from one year onwards. That is why the KCE proposes to reduce the waiting period for these people from ten years to one year. These proposals, according to calculations by the KCE, could potentially affect one in two women diagnosed with breast cancer.
In addition, the Knowledge Center also proposes to calculate the waiting time from the date of diagnosis instead of from the completion of treatment. That last date is not always easy to determine.
In a next phase, the Follow-up Office for Debt Balance Insurance Tariffs will examine the proposals. After that, both opinions are passed on to the competent authorities, who finally take the plunge. Other conditions will also be studied in the future.
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