I am a free lance illustrator so I have no insurance and I was curious if anybody knows how much the doctors visits, hormone injections, blah blah blah cost without it. Most insurance company's don't seem to cover long term psychiatric care much less HRT so I am trying to find out how hard it would be to pay for on my own.

I'm looking into the same thing and what I've heard so far ranges from 600$ to $100 for the all the tests they run the first visit.

Do you have any idea what they base things on? Is it stuff like age and previous drug use or is it just dependent on the health care provider? Thanks for your help ^_^

Do a search for "free clinics/USA" and see what, if anything you come up with. O, the Mazzoni Clinic is no longer free. They charge $10/visit for those with no income and then go up for people with income.

There's Tom Wadell in SF and there may well be others. Compounding pharmacies, another google search can provide you with low-cost and pure T and/or E that they make themselves. The pharmaceutical companies run basically the same process and come through at about 3x the price (less shipping for the compounders, which is fairly cheap) and their batches are much larger. Seems to be an excess profit motive working there. Another huge surprise! No?

Wal-mart has low prescription prices on some items, but the list changes every month and the numbers of pills you can get from them is very limited. But, when you can get them there, their charge tends to be low. Just a roulette-wheel about what costs how much when.

For other meds you may be able to get them from some sort of internet pharmacy.

The endo visits are a bit more pricey, as you might expect. Back when I last saw one, some few years ago now, his initial visit was in excess of $300. Regular visits were about $175 twice a year.

Transition is not noted for being inexpensive in the USA. Then again, nothing seems to be except poverty. We give that away daily for free.

Nichole

I am also self-employed and self-pay on everything, and I think I'm probably paying about the average for my area. The drugs run me approx. $166 US per month at Walgreen's, doctor's visits are $125 to $150 every 6 weeks or so. My therapist is $175 per visit (though not every week thank Goddess). And then there's electrolysis, makeup, nail polish, various lotions, perfumes, bubble bath, etc... not to mention all those too cute little outfits at Macy's that I just can't resist...

Kewl thanks so much. Its kind of comforting to hear that its not as expensive as I thought. I actually receive free visits to my psychologist because I have no insurance and very low income and it looks like I may be able to cover the rest of that if i budget myself like crazy. Thanks for all the help!

One feature you may wanna take into account as well is that vials of E are normally used every week/10 days/or two weeks. So with 10 or so IMs per vial, perhaps more dependant on dosage, the costs spread out. The hormones will be one of the least expensive meds they'll put you on. Anti-androgens prolly the most expensive unless you get something like dutasteride or propecia as well for hair loss and thicKness. Those are mega-expensive. Any progesterone you take, again if you get compounded and IM, will be low as well. But for that they usually (the docs) wait at least 6 months or a year.

One of the things that you'll need to understand is that 98% (ok, that's a made-up stat) of the docs who'll treat you will base treatment on HRT for genetic females who would also not be doing the anti-androgens. So do your research before hand and be able to talk with the doctor intelligently and bring some proof to back you up: Links to trans-health sites, research papers from PubMed etc.

Never start unlearned because in a lot of cases the docs will be unlearned as well or will have learned what the state of the art was years ago.

Nichole

     That is actually what I have been experiencing a lot of. My therapist has no experience with transgendered people and is pretty dependent on me to do the research. I am trying to learn as much as possible so that I can do things right.

     I have a lot of social anxiety issues not like the disorder or anything but people laughing at me is the scariest thing in the world I'm my eyes. The whole real life experience thing is taking me a little longer then most people so still have a long way to go before I actually start any kind of hormones but I want to be as educated and prepared as possible

I think that with some fairly decent luck you may find that RLT isn't nearly as bad as you may think. It can be rather amazing what Estro can do and with the T suppression ... well. It can all be good. Work on voice and your terror and you may well find it's neither as difficult as you think or as bad as you imagine.

O, and be thankful that with few exceptions you're not required anymore to go IRT a year or two prior to HRT. That had to have been hellish!

Nichole

I definitely feel like the majority of my problem is in my head. The more experience I get the more it seams that people react positively to my being myself. The few times that I have been able to get up the courage to go out I also got hit on a lot which is very helpful for my ego to ^_^ and as long as I don't talk or see anyone I know there is no laughter or awkwardness.