Not Taking Insurance......

[PN-SufferVT]

So I had some time today to read many of the post, especially of course the ones that might help my specific case. I have some issue with physicians being bad mouthed for not taking insurance. Ok, lets talk about this issue..... there is pure fee for service (no coding) and then there is pay up front and submit to insurance. I know that we all love to be "in Network" with the provider we want to see, but often we aren't, and often to get the best care we have to go out of network. Many of us say, well they are out of network, but they still bill my insurance....... so I will try them out.

My comment is WHAT is the difference in this and submitting it yourself. In 90% of the cases there isn't a whole lot of difference. The insurance is going to pay what they want to pay, yes you will not get preferred provider discount, but hey I would mortgage my house to get rid of this pain..... By profession I am a financial planner, by training I am an economist..... So how I look at it is this; What is the opportunity cost of staying in pain..... what is your time worth hourly, yearly.... what is your quality of life worth???? Place a number on this, then find out what your insurance will cover when submitting a claim then take the cost of the procedure (whatever it may be) and calculate the breakeven based on you activity level and happiness level before PN pain. You might be surprised.

[Celeste]

It's just one of many instances in life in which you will essentially be asked, "how badly do you want it?".

[Griff522]

VT, I just want to say that I totally agree with your post. My husband (and financial coach ) has a finance degree and we have lived very frugally during our 18 yrs of marriage. At first, he was very hesitant about me wanting to go to NY for an MRI. His response was, "surely, in this city where there are two medical schools and teaching hospitals, there has to be somebody that can treat this." So I had a MRI done locally and it showed nothing, and the specialists just gave me drugs and no other options. I had to convince him that Dr Potter was the only one that could tell me what was wrong.

And deciding to go to Dellon was a long process for me. Of course, we are concerned about the cost. We are not independently wealthy! But I need to have this surgery done and with the least amount of travel and time away from home, because we have two kids we are responsible for and my husband's job is very demanding.