Health Insurance

Yes, I am going here, because our healthcare system is messed up and with that so is health insurance. Here is the deal, when we found out that the tumors were back and the oncologist wanted to remove them and continue on the immunotherapy treatments, we could have totally done that. That would have definitely been an easier choice for us. Todd has a good coverage health insurance plan and honestly, we wouldn’t have had to pay a cent because he had already met the out of pocket for the year.

This a picture from our 2018 end of the year statement from our health insurance. It is insane how much having health insurance “saved” us! I am thankful that we had insurance while Todd was seeing the doctor’s and having treatments done, but still, I think this is crazy.

Todd stopped seeing physicians that our insurance would cover in October, if he would have stayed on the conventional track, these numbers would have been much higher. It would have reached over a million dollars….one million dollars (insert Dr. Evil’s laugh here). It is obvious the doctors wanted Todd to continue immunotherapy treatments. The last few months the dosage changed and he was able to receive the treatment only once a month. At that point, each infusion was about $94,000. This is one of the reasons the healthcare industry makes over a billion dollars a year.

It is unfortunate that insurance will cover toxic synthetic chemicals at outrageous cost, but anything natural is not covered at all. The FDA cannot patent a natural substance therefore no money to be made. There needs to be a change, more people need to realize what is happening. Not to mention the huge drug abuse problem that keeps growing out of control.

Moving on to radiology, I received a letter last week from our insurance company that Todd’s PET scan that we are trying to get done prior to leaving was denied. I have not had the time or patience to get on the phone to argue this, but how the heck do you deny a patient with stage 4 metastatic melanoma from having this scan done?! It is waste of time for me, the staff at the doctors office and the radiology department.

I wanted to show that we understand that we are asking for a lot of money to get us to CHIPSA hospital. Compared to the cost of one treatment here vs three weeks of complete treatment outside the country, this is significantly cheaper. We know this is not the easy choice, but we feel it is the right choice for Todd. We cannot let out of pocket expenses stop him from making the right decision for him. This is why we need your help, please don’t stop sharing!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/todds-stage-4-cancer-journey&rcid=r01-156401780079-5bb61d7a91d646cb&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

Thank you, ALL!!!