[quote=ucodegen][quote=Coronita]
MRI is around $15k if not covered by insurance
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Seriously??? geesh… welcome to the inflation of health costs!! I had an abdominal MRI done 2007, with contrast. I did ask if I got a discount for cash pay on the spot.. which they said that there was.. and it ending up being just under $700 at Sharp Hospital.
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Oh, I wish I was kidding. I’m pretty sure that $700 MRI wasn’t the MRI that I need to get…
And I was wrong. $15,000 was what it was maybe a few years ago…
The hospital bill for using the MRI alone is well above that these days, slightly over $16k….On top of that there’s the cost of the doctor/radiologist reading it for $1800, and then the cost of my doctor just doing all the procedural screening $500… And an Xray they require to take if you swallowed a pill camera from your previous capsule endoscopy, because they want to confirm the capsule camera was excreted before the run the MRI, even if you visually confirmed you pooped it out.. (because a metal capsule and MRIs don’t mix and they don’t trust you even if you tell them you saw it pooped out)
It’s always fun dealing with insurance after a procedure, even if it was pre-authed….Sometimes it’s pre-authed and still denied… And it takes about 5-6 back and forth to get them to pay anything. And then when they do, it’s usually the up to $2500 deductible and the 10%copay up to the annual limit like some health plans.
Thankfully, I’m not really sick. I have time, patience, etc to deal with the insurance company.
Lots of insurance do not insure MRI or try to get you to go to a different facility that doesn’t do the correct thing because it might be marginally cheaper. It works for things like if you break your leg or stuff, but if you need a bunch of specialists to monitor a condition, like you want to be at a good GI + Oncology place, and in my experience, the best place to do this is at a medical facility that also does research and has access to research.
People can talk all the want about the sort of connections they have, the amount of money they have, how much they have access to easy investments. In reality, when you’re old, none of that matters nearly as much as how quickly you have access to some of the leading researchers that specialize in your diagnosed condition, and often times, money can’t really buy you that access easily. Because for many of the leading researchers in certain specialization, they are already booked with patients and no longer accepting new ones. So it’s not like you can easily just use your money to be seen. People will know when they get there.I had to do a lot of reaching out to get a hold of a lot of doctors in my group to try to figure out a lot about who I should see, talk to, and then find a way to even get seen because like i said, lot of these folks already are booked solid with existing patients and aren’t open to new ones. And you really have to be your own advocate and do your own research, because a lot of doctors don’t know what the latest is. Doesn’t matter how much money you have.
I’ve been to Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Sloan Kettering New York, Mayo Clinic in Mn, Dana-Farber in Boston, Johns Hopkins in MD, UCLA in LA, Cedar Sinai in LA. To get a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th opinion years ago…
Side note: fun fact about Cedar Sinai…
Cedar coordinates a lot with UCLA so a lot of doctors from UCLA also are contractors that work for Cedar. So you got to be careful going to Cedar. It’s a great facility if you already done your homework on the type of doctors to see. But there are also a lot of doctors there that operate as an independent contractor that are only looking after their $best interest$ and not your health interest. But if you found a good one, like I did, they know their shit….I had one really bad experience with a surgeon that wanted to slice and dice me open to make money, and a great experience with an oncologist that was fighting against surgery and wasn’t trying to earn my business. He was willing to coordinate treatment with UCSD if I didn’t want to go to Cedar in LA…I got a second opinion from a great surgeon and researcher then at Cleveland Clinic that did years of research, bunch of papers, trials etc, who ultimately advised against surgery and told me to first stick with the oncologist’s recommendations(he’s now at Columbia https://columbiasurgery.org/james-m-church-md)
Be careful about a lot of for profit specialists…
Lots of the doctors charge a lot, ironically aren’t even the top of their game in their field. They are basically built their for-profit business off of the work of some of the leading researchers. I’d prefer going to directly to the source of that research, and bypass the more expensive middlemen/women that try to directly profit off of their work. Many doctors are utterly useless and shouldn’t be practicing imho, probably bought their way into medical school with a fancy diploma from a pedigree school paid by mommy and daddy, but that’s about it. Aren’t leading researchers. no thanks.
UCSD is a pretty high rank research facility. I wouldn’t recommend going to their ER for day to day stuff since they take everyone and it can be hellish to get treatment in their ER (speaking from experience), but a lot of cutting edge research and eveb though some of the lead researchers are no longer at UCSD, they still connect with UCSD.
But back on topic. Yes, medical care can get really really expensive as you get older. So, especially if you know you have a pre-existing condition, that has to be factored into any sort of plan for early retirement imho. Also, as much as we like to think with the ACA, that everyone has medical insurance, you also have to be careful with that assumption because lots of things medical insurance doesn’t cover. So even when I switch employers, medical insurance is something to look at.
Sometimes people say, well if I really get sick, I’ll just put a bullet in myself…(and I think i said that a few times here, tongue and check).. Well, in theory that’s a simplifying solution, and if that’s the case one doesn’t even really need to plan that much for retirement. But the reality of this is unless you are a loner that no one cares about you, it’s not really a solution…Because while that might be perfectly fine with for you, it messes up everyone else that cares about you…Unfortunately, that was a lesson learned too. So to some extent you have to do your part and put up a good fight, up to the point of diminishing returns…..And especially if you have a kid that has the same condition that will most likely go through the same thing, you got to put up a fight so your kid sees what you do, and learns to do the same thing and not give up early.
The one positive thing about dealing with this when you are in your 30ies. Is that you’re well prepared for it by the time you are in your 50ies one way or the other, at a time when most people in their 50ies are just starting to recognize that they might eventually have to deal with something like this when they are in their 60+.
The absolutely worst part of all this is… The annual bowel prep I’m stuck doing….The actual endoscopy is no big deal. They generally knock you out so you don’t even remember it, unless you are like me, when you insist you only want to do a light sedation because you want to stay awake while they are doing the lower one because you think it’s cool and interesting…and only knock you out for the upper one, which in theory you can be fully awake with that one, except it’s a little weird to have a tube down your throat while you are awake..try not to gag..Ive tried that once, and it wasn’t that pleasant. But the main reason is that unlike everyone else, I need to be put under every year at least once. Not sure what the long term damage that might do, as there are some suggestions that it could lead to memory loss. So most procedures I try to do with only localized sedation and try to stay awake. I have this game I play when they knock me out. I stare at the clock to see from the time they put the sedative in, how long I stay up, counting the seconds on the clock trying to remember everything that happened until the sedative kicks in.
