When my husband had surgery locally to remove a brachial cyst on his neck - and it turned out not to be a brachial cyst - it was cancer in his lymph nodes in his neck - we were desperate. It had taken us so so long just to get to that point with an ENT to be evaluated and have the surgery. We knew time was not on our side, and the notion of having to battle so hard to get help after his cancer diagnosis...we were desperate. I called Mayo Jacksonville on the Friday after his surgery earlier that week. They wanted to see his diagnosis and surgical notes. I sent both immediately. Mayo called back within the hour and scheduled my husband to be seen the next business day which was Monday. His initial doctor at Mayo saw him on Monday and set up follow up appointments for Tuesday with more providers and more scans and tests for my husband. My husband started radiation 8 days later at Mayo. He finished treatment 6 months ago and is cancer free now. We go back every 90 days for more scans and tests - his cancer has a high recurrence rate. But so far, he's still still cancer free. I can not say enough good things about our care at Mayo. I am absolutely certain that but for Mayo's prompt and excellent care, our outcome would not have been nearly so positive. My sense is that if the patient has a complex disease or complex cancer diagnosis (as we did) , Mayo will move mountains to get the patient cared for - they know it is literally life or death - as was our situation. For more chronic/less acute diagnoses, I think it can take quite a bit longer to be approved for care at Mayo.