Reply #76: I just had one a couple of months ago before some kidney stone lithotripsy I had... [View All]

[cascadiance]

... when they had to see and verify that one was stuck in my urethra between my kidney and bladder. Not all of the time is it for cancer, but it is needed at times when X-Rays don't give enough info. When I went to ER earlier, they said they would only do the X-Ray then, because they wanted my urologist to ensure that it was done later to properly diagnose and prepare for that surgery (it is non-invasive and just uses a laser through your tubes so it wasn't that unpleasant, except for the kidney stone itself and some pains afterwards).

I was told that CT Scans do also put a lot more radiation through your body than a regular X-Ray, so you don't want to get them that frequently, which is why they only wanted to do one.

As for the original post, a lot depends on who your insurance is through, and of course who's buying it with what kind of plan. if you look at the costs that doctor requests for a procedure and what the insurance company negotiates, it can be QUITE different and lower what they pay. So in effect, many people who are uninsured or have low quality plans that aren't one of the big companies, they wind up having to pay MORE to make up for what the big insurance companies negotiate down on their payments. Which is another reason why single payer is really necessary to bring costs down for people without the benefit of working for big companies without big insurance plans.

I was fortunate that I just recently had a job that even though I lost it, gave me COBRA to cover this. I wasn't about to sit around and leave it inside me when I might not get any new insurance coverage to cover it if they termed it a pre-existing condition before they end that limitation later some years from now.