Cancer Tops Stop-Loss Reimbursements, Sun Life Study

From Business Insurance:

... Sun Life paid out $618 million in stop-loss reimbursements between 2012 and 2015 — 26.6% to total stop-loss claims — for cancers, including malignant neoplasms, like breast and brain cancer, and blood cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, according to the report.  

Cancer claims reimbursement rose to 28% of total stop-loss claims reimbursements in 2015 from 24.3% in 2012, the report showed. ... 

The report also showed that 45% of the 20 highest cost intravenous medications in 2015 were used to treat cancer. ... 

Transplants were the sixth highest-cost condition during the four-year period, up from No. 11 in Sun Life’s previous survey, which looked at the costliest conditions between 2011 and 2014. Transplants, including kidney, liver, lung, bone marrow and stem cell, represented $62.2 million in stop-loss claims payments between 2012 and 2015, or 2.7% of the total reimbursements. 

The average charge for a transplant during the four-year period was more than $253,000, according to the report. ... 

Though just 2% of stop-loss claimants hit the million-dollar reimbursement mark, those claimants account for 18.5% of total stop-loss claims reimbursements, according to Sun Life. ...