How much did your endo charge to get started?

[Hannah]

Now that I think about it, it's probably more a matter of experience. My psychiatrist had treated transexuals before, my regular doctor has not. She's a lot more comfortable with the idea of refilling his scripts than she was with writing the initial one herself. I might take the road trip in february anyhow. That endo is in Portland, the nearest actual human settlement, and it could be fun to make a weekend out of it.

[tekla]

It's more of a matter of expertise and insurance (the doctor's, not yours).

[lisagurl]

Insurance is different in many cases and tests are a separate charge.

[Hypatia]

Insurance? Ha! I innocently took my first HRT prescription to an ordinary pharmacy-- and the insurance refused to cover it, I had to pay $105 out of pocket. That was how I found out about the exclusionary clause in my policy denying coverage to anything transgender. The bastards. Then I found out the Whitman-Walker Clinic had a pharmacy, and they fill my HRT prescriptions for a huge discount, I get like 70% off, so the insurance company can go hang. 

[Hannah]

Insurance? Ha! I innocently took my first HRT prescription to an ordinary pharmacy-- and the insurance refused to cover it

Yeah...I'm scared of the same thing happening. I'm a member of the Oregon Health Plan. While it does have funded clauses for cross gender hormone therapy and mental health, I pay for the meds myself. It doesn't leave them with any reason to argue with me over anything so they keep paying for labs and doctor visits...and it would be way harder for me to take care of those alone than it is to cough up $60 a month for meds and remain inconspicuous. I've yet to find an ohp approved gender therapist or endocronologist, but I don't live in the city, and considering that I've been really, really happy with the choices available to me so far. People always kind of wrinkle their noses at the term "government doctor" but mine is absolutely fantastic. A bit of a battleaxe, but she has a good heart. For some reason Americans seem to think that socializing medicine would throw us into opressive communism and I just don't get it.

[Hypatia]

It's a national disgrace that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn't provide public coverage for the people's health care. If a nation does not care for the health of its people, how can that nation long thrive and prosper? We'll become less powerful and important in the world, no longer on top of the world, we'll be surpassed by Europe and China.

[Alex_C]

My counseling took all of 5 minutes so that was easy, labs were on an "order" and the only thing I had to pay for was the order of T and needles. That's something like $58 for 4 months' worth.

[Kevin]

Hey Nero, I don't have insurance either and I'm having a hard time keeping up with the bloodwork/appointments needed... but just wanted to suggest to you to try a local hospital if you need bloodwork and stuff done. I went to mine in March for flu symptoms/problems and I don't have insurance and I'm unemployed so I had to fill out paperwork and didn't have to pay anything for that... basically that free-medical-care lasted 3 months so I got my bloodwork done for free later that month and just sent the results up to Dr. Murphy in Cleveland. I could probably do this again if I wanted to deal with the paperwork and everything again, I think you just have to redo the paperwork every 3 months or something.

I actually went to the endo for free the first time in May of 2008, that was just before MetroHealth changed their policies about out of county financial help... I got in just in time. I don't think they have ANY financial help for people out of Cuyahoga county anymore, which is why I haven't been back up yet, unfortunately.

But just wanted to point out that just because you don't have insurance doesn't mean you're screwed, there are programs out there to help!

[Alex_C]

OK I've been back to the doc (it's been 3 months) and got another office visit, prescription, and a sheet to take to the local blood lab which I did today, they drew 3 tubes of blood from me.

Funding has ended for trans care so I can still see my doc I just have to pay in full. So, it turns out that the charge for this office visit was $71, the lab tests are cheap like $8 each but may have been taken care of as part of the office visit, and the T went up a buck, $59 this time. So it's still not a big problem.

[Natalie Foster]

My Endocrinologist charges $200.00 for each set of tests. The office visit is included in that figure.