What does St. Jude provide?

Familes never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — so they can focus on helping their child live.

Treatment

When a patient comes to St. Jude, their family is not billed for treatment, which means that everything from clinician visits to prescriptions to surgical procedures, therapies, follow-up care and more is covered. Our medical staff make treatment decisions to improve patients' prognoses without regard to a family's financial resources.

Patients receive the same level of care whether or not their family has insurance. If a family does have insurance, St. Jude will bill the insurance company, but no family is asked for co-pays or deductibles. Read our full financial assistance policy.

Travel

Patients who travel to the St. Jude campus in Memphis, Tenn., are not charged for the transportation to get them there, whether that be by air, bus, rail or car.

For patients who live in the United States, St. Jude pays for the travel of patients along with two caregivers. For international patients and adult former patients traveling to St. Jude for the St. Jude LIFE program or other similar reasons, we pay for the patient and one caregiver.

For patients who live locally (i.e., close to the hospital), shuttles may be provided or reimbursement for mileage.

Housing

St. Jude has multiple housing facilities where patients and their caregivers can stay without charge, if needed. Most of our patients are treated as outpatients, and some live locally and don't need accommodations.

But for patients living more than 35 miles away whose treatment requires an overnight stay, St. Jude provides housing close to campus for up to five in a family. Depending on a patient’s treatment needs, short- and long-term housing options are available, including Tri Delta Place, Target House, The Domino's Village and Ronald McDonald House, which combined can house 391 families. Each of these facilities offers families comfortable lodging with recreational opportunities and other amenities.

Food

St. Jude provides a daily food allowance for meals on campus for patients and up to two caregivers.

St. Jude also provides financial assistance for groceries to patients staying in St. Jude-provided short- and long-term housing.

What other services does St. Jude provide?

We offer numerous other services for our families including:

Professional help for caregivers and siblings coping with a child’s cancer diagnosis.
Child life specialists.
Concierge services to help families with everyday tasks like grocery delivery.
Translation services.
Childcare.
Family Commons, a treatment-and-clinical-staff-free floor where patients and families can rest in between clinic appointments.
An onsite school so patients can keep up with their elementary through high school curriculum back home.
And much more.

Learn more about St. Jude

St. Jude patient Misheel arranges herself in a CT machine.

What does St. Jude do?

St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Dig deeper into what we do.

How does St. Jude work?

Unlike other hospitals, the majority of funding for St. Jude comes from generous donors. Learn about our operating model.

How does St. Jude use donations?

Donations support treatment, research and the future needs of St. Jude. Find out more.

When you support St. Jude, you support a lifesaving mission to advance cures and means of prevention for pediatric cancer for children worldwide. St. Jude leads more clinical trials for pediatric cancer than any other hospital in the United States. With your help, we can save more lives.

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