OBJECTIVES: High cost and highly effective cancer treatment are changing the survivorship landscape with implications for pharma, payers and patients. High initial cost of care may be mitigated by lower global cost of care and significantly lower subsequent year cost.  However, such long term value may be lost if patients switch coverage at general market frequency.  We compared published benchmark coverage switch data to a breast cancer and non-cancer cohort to evaluate if patients with a cancer diagnosis are less likely to switch coverage. METHODS: Breast cancer patients and a control group of non-cancer patients were identified using data obtained from the Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) medical claims database.  Patients had a claim during the 12 month period ending April 2014, were 60 years old or younger, diagnosed as of 2011 or later, and had at least 3 years of follow-up data available. Payer information at index period and at time of switch was recorded and insurance patterns examined.  Data was analyzed using a chi-square test and Kaplan-Meier graphs. RESULTS: There were 1440 patients with breast cancer and 3950 patients with non-cancer diagnoses in the final study sample.  Breast cancer patients switched payer at a statistically lower proportion than the non-cancer control group, 22.7% versus 26.0% respectively (p=0.014). Time to payer switch estimated through a Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated a longer time to payer switch for breast cancer patients versus the control group (3.59 years versus 3.56 years, p=0.037). CONCLUSIONS: Despite protection against pre-existing condition uninsurability, a lower proportion of breast cancer patients switched payers during the study time window and had a longer estimated time to payer switch. Such trends will be of interest to payers and pharma as both seek understanding of value based care for their respective businesses.