Identifying Ideal Reimbursement "Dose" to Reduce Clinical Trial-related Financial Toxicity

April 23, 2026 updated by: Courtney Williams, University of Alabama at Birmingham

The goal of this clinical trial is to explore the feasibility and preliminary impact of a pilot financial reimbursement intervention for women with breast cancer living in the Deep South who are eligible for a clinical trial. The main questions it aims to answer are:

  1. Can we recruit and retain patients on a clinical trial to a reimbursement study?
  2. What is the preliminary impact of participation in a reimbursement study on patient financial hardship?

Participants will receive a monthly reimbursement to compensate for their trial-incurred expenses. Researchers will use surveys and interviews to explore the impact of receiving reimbursement on trial-related outcomes and financial hardship for participating patients.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This convergent, mixed methods, pilot, feasibility, single-arm trial will provide financial reimbursement to therapeutic clinical trial-eligible women with breast cancer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. We hypothesize that optimal reimbursement for trial-related expenses is feasible and will decrease patient financial toxicity and increase trial retention. The rationale is that understanding the impact of reimbursement for trial-related costs will aid in addressing socioeconomic barriers to trial participation, thus allowing for more diversity in trial enrollment and ensuring equitable efficacy of cancer treatments when used in real-world clinical settings.

Feasibility benchmarks will be defined as 80% retention of consented patients in the reimbursement study and retained patients completing at least 75% of bi-weekly surveys while enrolled. Feasibility will also be assessed by the patient-reported acceptability (as measured by the AIM; scored 1-5, higher scores indicate greater acceptability) and appropriateness (as measured by the IAM; scored 1-5, higher scores indicate greater appropriateness) of the financial reimbursement.

Preliminary impact data will be captured:

  1. using bi-weekly surveys that include patient-reported financial toxicity (as measured by the COmprehensive Score for financial Toxicity [COST]), material financial hardship (13 domains, including trouble paying for medical expenses or basic needs), and behavioral financial hardship (12 domains, including postponing or skipping recommended care).
  2. using videocall-based semi-structured interview to explore effects of the financial reimbursement on trial recruitment, retention, and financial hardship.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

39

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Alabama
      • Birmingham, Alabama, United States, 35294
        • University of Alabama at Birmingham

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Participants will be women with breast cancer currently enrolled in the Investigation of Serial studies to Predict Your Therapeutic Response with Imaging and Molecular AnaLysis (I-SPY TRIAL 2) at the UAB Medical Oncology Clinic.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Non-English speakers
  • Males
  • Females without cancer
  • Female cancer patients not enrolled in the I-SPY TRIAL 2

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Patients receiving reimbursement
Monthly reimbursement to offset trial-related expenses
Behavioral: Reimbursement
Patients will be dosed in cohorts of 5, with a maximum available sample size of 30. The first cohort of 5 patients will be enrolled at the first reimbursement dose level of $1000 per month for 4 months ($4000 per patient in total). At the end of the 4-month period, reimbursement dose suitability will be determined as suitable by a cumulative negative financial toxicity screen and reimbursement dose deemed acceptable and appropriate in at least 4 patients. If the reimbursement dose is found suitable, we will de-escalate the reimbursement dose for the next cohort of 5 patients. If the reimbursement dose is found unsuitable, the next cohort of 5 patients will be enrolled at the same reimbursement amount ($1000 per month for 4 months).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Patients Who Receive All Reimbursements and Who Complete Follow-up Surveys (Overall Feasibility of Intervention)
Time Frame: 2 years
Number of patients who receive all reimbursements: 80% retention of patients Number of retained patients who patients who complete surveys: 75% of survey completion while enrolled
2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Collaborators

National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama
Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham Women's Breast Health Fund

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Courtney Williams, DrPH, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

July 1, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 12, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 12, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

May 23, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 18, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 23, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB-300009554
  • Other Grant/Funding Number: Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham Women's Breast Health Fund
  • P30CA013148 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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