MD Anderson Update

My visit to MD Anderson was very educational. It is so different from my regular doctor/hospital UT-Southwestern. MD Anderson seems to have efficient patient care down to a science. Dr. Duvic and her team were very thorough and nice, but I doubt I would go back.

I had to pay $1040 before I was even seen, even with pretty good insurance. While I was there, I had a 10 minute visit with Dr. Duvic, 10 minutes with the intern, and they asked to do routine bloodwork, and it had been awhile so of course I said yes. Whatever was leftover from my "deposit" was supposed to be refundable. I called up a couple weeks later to ask how much of my "deposit" I could get back. The financial coordinator informed me that even with my $1000 deposit, even with the discount that having insurance provides, even with the insurance paying their part, I still owed $500 more. For a regular doctor visit, and some routine bloodwork. I can't even imagine what they charge to get anything actually done there. They never sent me an itemized bill, so I need to call and ask for that.

So that leaves a negative feeling about my visit. Had I known, I never would have gone. I am happy with Dr. Pandya's care, the opportunity to go see Dr. Duvic was there, so I took it. But I never imagined that a regular doctors visit would cost $1500 to me plus whatever the insurance paid.

Good news/ Bad news: The spots above my eye and cheek that had been there for 2 months went away a couple days before my Dr. Duvic appointment so she didn't get to see them and they have been clear since then.

Around the middle of April my knees started getting pretty red and I've noticed some other feint spots around my stomach and chest area. I've been using Clobetasol and decreased Narrowband UVB to every other week. So far I haven't got a huge outcropping from decreasing the NB-UVB which is good since last time I decreased to every other week, I did get spots cropping up. Hopefully I can keep at this level or stop all together by this summer. It's such a hassle to fit in my schedule and deal with rush hour Dallas traffic most of the time. It could be tons worse though.