Cancer isn’t cheap.
I received the last of my Explanation of Benefits statements covering my salvage radiation therapy (SRT) with concurrent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). You know me. For grins and giggles, I had to play with the numbers.
Ouch!
Therapy | Billed |
Radical Prostatectomy | $109,989 |
Salvage Radiation Therapy | $176,548 |
Total | $286,737 |
Those numbers do not include all of the doctor visits and PSA tests from diagnosis to today—just the surgery and SRT/ADT.
For the radical prostatectomy and the subsequent infection hospitalization, that’s what the hospital and doctors billed my employer-provided health insurance company. Of course, the insurance company didn’t pay the hospital the full amount, and I had some copay responsibilities to the tune of $4,372 as well.
For the SRT/ADT, the “Billed” number is what USCD has billed the VA for my treatment. Each zapping session was billed at $3,894. (My radiation oncologist had no idea it was that expensive. As a university employee, he’s not involved in billing.) It appears that the VA is reimbursing UCSD at a rate of somewhere between 10% and 15% of the billed costs.
Coincidentally, I came across this article about the costs of ADT: It cost $38,398 for a single shot of a very old cancer drug. My Eligard shot was billed at $10,835. What a deal! <sarcasm font>
Of course, the emotional cost of cancer is incalculable.
Moral of the story: Don’t get sick without health insurance.
This post originally appeared November 17, 2022, on Dan’s Journey Through Prostate Cancer. It is republished with permission.
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