Quote from: Dietlind on November 23, 2018, 09:10:38 AM
I hope you ladies can enlighten me a little bit. One of these days I want some surgeon to cut around my neither regions, too.
You all seem to travel across the world to have this done. I am retired and thus on a limited income, and would like to have it done by a surgeon who accepts US health insurances/medicare.
Was/will your surgery be paid for by insurance? Did you need to go out of network for this?
Florida medicare is funny, because they want to force you to stay in Florida to have the surgery done. The only surgeons who do this kind of surgery are part of the University of Florida in Miami. But they seem to have a pretty poor reputation concerning their outcome.
Because I still have time enough to sign on with a different advantage plan, I wonder if I should get a more expensive plan that would pay for out of state surgeries?
Is there a certain minimum waiting time on HRT before you can get the surgery done? Or is it just how well/poorly you negotiate with the surgeon?
I would really appreciate it, if you could help me a little with my soul searching!
I start with the easy one:
Most surgeons in the Is follow WPATH which requires one year full time and one year HRT before surgery. And two letters from therapist / psychiatrist.
There are three main reasons for travel:
Cost - surgery in some countries is cheaper. Even though I was surprised by the cost for a US surgeon which is much lower than I expected.
Insurance coverage - not all surgeons accept Insurance and it may vary by your carrier on top.
Preference - some people want their surgery done by a specific surgeon with high reputation and lots of experience.
For insurance coverage: first you need to figure out what your plan covers at all. As you suggested you can still switch to a plan which covers surgery. Some insurances put limitations on how much they pay.
For me it was a choice of: reasonably close by and from all I heard pretty good outcome. I also liked her during my consultation. She also has a fairly short wait time which fits my schedule for next year very well. I am starting a big work project mid June and need to be mostly recovered by then.
My insurance for example covers 80% of their set rates for in network and 60% for out of network. If you do not have an in-network surgeon in reasonable distance (50 miles) you can apply for an out of network surgeon to be payed as in-network.
My surgeon does not take insurance but for a small fee they help with all the insurance paperwork and pre-approval. I still have to pay everything upfront and then wait for insurance reimbursement.
Hope this helps,
Sarah
