Friday, March 16, 2018

Insurance, Love It Or Hate It

We here in the U.S. are stuck at the whim of the insurance companies, they and not our doctors are make the decision on what is and what is not covered.
Many transgender patients pay cash for gender-affirming surgery
Reuters
By Lisa Rapaport
March 15, 2018

(Reuters Health) - Even though a growing number of transgender patients now use insurance for gender-affirming surgery, almost half are still paying cash for procedures their health plans don’t cover, a U.S. study suggests.

The proportion of patients getting genital surgery as part of their transition rose from 72 percent in the period from 2000 to 2005 to 84 percent from 2006 to 2011, yet 56 percent paid out of pocket.

Even in the period from 2012 to 2014, about 46 percent of patients lacked insurance for these operations and paid cash, researchers report in JAMA Surgery.
[…]
While costs may still keep some people from getting gender-affirming surgery, a limited supply of surgeons also plays a role, said senior study author Brandyn Lau, director of quality and research for the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender Health in Baltimore.

“We know that patients can spend years on a waitlist for surgery because there have only been a limited number of providers who have committed to making gender-affirming surgery a part of their practice,” Lau said by email.
Many of the trans people that I know are looking overseas, or to surgeons who are just starting to perform Gender Confirming Surgery (GCS).

1 comment:

  1. "The proportion of patients getting genital surgery as part of their transition rose from 72 percent in the period from 2000 to 2005 to 84 percent from 2006 to 2011, yet 56 percent paid out of pocket." ???? Who are these "patients?" Certainly, they do not represent 72 %, then 84%, and, now, presumably a higher percentage of the total transitioning population. If these patients are only those who have sought GCS, however, those percentages still seem awfully high.

    As long as the Health Insurance system remains conflated with "Health Care," we will always be at the insurance companies' mercy (more precisely, the lack of it).

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