MD Anderson is Terrible.

So I was holding off judgement on MD Anderson as long as possible, partly because I never got to see a doctor there. Today I finally broke and decided they are mostly evil. The physicians there might be great, but how would I know as I never got in the door.

When I first got diagnosed everyone told me to go to to MD Anderson, which is what we tried to do initially. It all seemed to be going well, I had an appointment scheduled and sent everything to them. It was all downhill from there. I got a call from one of their "account specialist" who basically told me that my insurance was no good and they wouldn't even consider billing it. This was a shock to me as we have great insurance that Megan works very hard for.

I then asked, how much is it to just get a consultation, she typed my diagnoses and said.... $18,500. I laughed at her for a minute because I thought she was joking. Turns out she wasn't. Her next words are would you like to pay 18,500 now or just cancel my appointment? Needless to say we didn't end up going there. Luckily all of this led us to go to St. Louis to get the surgery by Dr. Moley which turned out better I think anyways.

So then 2 weeks ago I got a bill from MD Anderson. Why? I found out after being on the phone today it is because they looked at my pathology slides that I was forced to send in to get an appointment. Then they told my my doctor requested a 2nd opinion. This is not true as I was the one who sent the slides in. I told her I never even got to get an opinion there so I should not be billed. She said it "is very common for people that never make it to MD Anderson to be billed". That is one of the more ridiculous things I have ever heard.

I realize they are a business. However, they are in the cancer business and I believe they are scaring cancer patients into getting unneeded tests and pouring their life savings into a hope that they provide something better. To me that seems wrong.