Cancer Care already consumes roughly 15% of employer healthcare spend—and that figure is expected to grow by up to 9% annually. But it’s not just rising incidence that’s driving spend. It’s later-stage diagnoses, care delays, and treatment complexity compounding across your population.

For a workforce of 10,000 employees, detecting cancers just one stage earlier could avoid $4M in treatment costs over the next year—before even factoring in the impact of care gaps or avoidable complications from poor management. 

That’s the cost of waiting. And most employers are doing just that: reacting when a diagnosis appears, instead of intervening earlier. 

But inaction is not neutral. It’s a decision with measurable downstream costs for your budget, your workforce, and your outcomes.

Our Virtual Cancer Clinic helps employers change the cost curve sustainably. We proactively identify high-risk individuals, accelerate time to diagnosis and treatment, provide on-demand access to a multidisciplinary oncology team, and directly close care gaps across the full journey—from screening to cancer treatment to survivorship. 

Cancer trend #1: The cost gap between early and late-stage cancer is widening

Earlier detection matters, more than ever, for both survival and cost. The cost difference between early and late-stage cancer is growing, not shrinking. Your costs of Cancer Care are compounding because of the outsized cost growth that’s happening specifically with care for later-stage disease. 

• Treating breast cancer at Stage I used to cost ~$69K. Today, it’s ~$94K. But at Stage IV? It’s jumped to  ~$266K—a nearly 3x increase from 2011.
• Lung cancer follows the same trend: ~$123K at Stage I to ~$442K at Stage IV.
• The median annual cost of new oncology medicines has risen to $260,000—up from $63,534 just 10 years ago.

This increase in late-stage Cancer Care costs is far above inflation, and is driving a big part of your trend.

Cancer trend #2: Access to cancer clinicians is suffering as demand surges

Employees are trying to access care—but the system can’t keep up. The rate of new cancer diagnoses is double that of the rate of new oncologists coming into practice across the U.S. And as incidence of cancer under age 50 increases, there is growing demand for specialized care for survivors that already is deeply under-resourced. This supply crunch is a system capacity failure, and in the status quo, your employees will find it harder to access the care they need each year.

• The U.S. faces a projected shortage of 2,200+ oncologists by 2025.
• 90% of radiation oncologists report staff shortages; over half say it’s leading to delays
• 16% of patients took more than six months after an abnormal screening to confirm a cancer diagnosis due to inefficiencies and access issues in the healthcare system.
• In Color’s program, nearly 90% of cancer patients present with at least one active clinical care gap at enrollment—such as unmanaged symptoms, missing referrals, or lack of care for comorbidities¹.
• Of those patients we see pre-enrollment, they average 4 care gaps, many of which can lead to unnecessary hospital visits, treatment delays, or missed work¹.

These delays have real consequences. A one-month delay in treatment can increase mortality risk by up to 13%, depending on cancer type.

Cancer trend #3: Cancer isn’t just clinical. It’s operational.

Cancer doesn’t just affect the individual being treated. It affects teams, families, and operations.

• Employees with metastatic cancer miss an average of 106 workdays.
• Caregivers report high strain: 40% report absenteeism, 34% reduce their working hours.
• 20% of cancer survivors are in the workforce age range (20-60) and face ongoing health, productivity, and support needs even after treatment ends
• 1 in 4 cancer patients experience depression or other mental health conditions, which can complicate and delay the return-to-work process

The 3 pillars of ROI: How Color helps employers stay ahead

The goal is simple: healthier lives, stronger care, and better costs.

What this means for you

The role of benefits is difficult—managing competing priorities, urgent crises, and the feeling of an unwieldy ecosystem of benefits while also trying to bring along other critical parts of the organization to support new solutions.

But cancer is different. Because it’s a clinical problem, not a navigation problem, and because the problem is worsening at an accelerating rate.

We’re helping leading employers take control of cancer, and do it simply and cost-effectively with no-risk investment and simple, fast implementations.

Want to see what that looks like? Let’s talk: learnmore@color.com

¹ Color historical Book of Business average

² Percentage savings based on comparison with average reimbursement across commercial payers in United States. Sourced from Serif Health, which compiles published price transparency data. Accessed in May 2025