Community-based cancer navigation and support program: What are the activities and how much does it cost?

PURPOSE: Michelle's Place is a nonprofit cancer resource center in California, which offers patient navigation to patients with cancer. Michelle's Place also provides education, support groups, and other activities to both clients and families. The objective of this paper is to describe activities conducted by patient navigators and to conduct a cost analysis to estimate the cost of a nonclinical patient navigation and cancer support program. METHODS: We collected salaries, time spent on various activities to support and conduct patient navigation, and costs of nonlabor activities. We separated the labor and nonlabor costs into core patient navigation activities (e.g. meeting with clients to conduct assessments; providing resources for financial assistance) and supplemental patient navigation activities (such as activities geared toward family members). We estimated labor and nonlabor costs for patient navigation, and costs per client navigated. RESULTS: We calculated cost per client navigated to be $639.23. The cost per client navigated for core patient navigation activities was $463.94 and for supplemental activities was $175.29. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide an estimate of resources required to support a patient navigation program for patients with cancer. This study adds to the limited research on the cost of these programs in non-profit, community-based organizations.