Set backs and the wild ride
As I wrote about it in my last post, I was excited to get biopsy tissue to Dr. Nagourney in Long Beach. He uses this tissue to test for chemo sensitivity and also to look for "off label" drugs that might work on a particular person's cancer. He has had tremendous success this way. As he says, "The drugs don't know what they were designed to do." In other words, some drugs, like Metformin for diabetes, have worked to control cancers with much less toxicity and sometimes when all other options have failed. He referred me to a surgeon in Long Beach and it got very weird from there. The office manager explained to me from the beginning that I would be 100% responsible for the bill for surgery and THEN they would try to bill insurance. I couldn't understand why they couldn't get preauthorization like everyone else. Finally I came to understand that insurance companies have tagged Dr. Nagourney's work as voluntary and not of medical necessity. So, I ...