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Tulsa Pro - my initial treatment experience
Prostate Cancer | Last Active: 16 hours ago | Replies (115)Comment receiving replies
Tulsa Pro sounds like one of the best treatments for the right patient. I haven't had an MRI done yet. I did have a PSMA PetScan done a few days ago, but haven't gotten the results yet. My latest PSA was 7.5, up from 5.1, 6 months ago. My doctor did an in office ultrasound guide biopsy which found cancer in 5 of 12 sites. 2 were 3+3 and 3 were 3+4. I see that there is a "Halo" (centers that perform Tulsa) in New Port Beach CA. which is only 60 miles from me. I've read conflicting posts on whether Original Medicare will cover all or a portion of the cost. I called Medicare directly, they were clueless. Assuming I went with Tulsa, do the doctors at the center where they do the proceedure determine what tests to do prior? Do they perform those tests? Are those tests considered part of the Tulsa Pfo proceedure's cost and if not, are those additional tests (MRI etc) covered under Medicare. I could swing the 30K if I had to, but certainly wouldn't want to. I'm also considering MRIdian, why would you choose Tulsa over MRIdian or Proton?
Thanks for all you share!!
Replies to "Tulsa Pro sounds like one of the best treatments for the right patient. I haven't had..."
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At least for me with a lot of BPH the only offers I got were surgery, and I really didn't want that. With BPH it is hard to do radiation, as they can almost guarantee urinary problems for the rest of your life and I didn't want that either unless I really really had to - though I did consider that route. So it was an easy choice of get Tulsa which improves the BPH and handles the cancer (hopefully fully one and done on that), and I was not going down the surgery route.
If you have tests still needed the Halo people near you can order that for you locally to you and it will go through insurance. I had my PSMA and labs etc locally. The Medicare code is approved to go in Jan 2025 but the cost I paid total was $31700 covered everything done at the procedure, and after, and all the zoom office visits prior, it covered the MRI during procedure, pre procedure prep, anesthesia, post procedure observation, removing catheter, nurse available since then at no extra and so on.
They improved the Tulsa procedure with some MRI thermometry last year where they take temperature up to a set point and make sure it stays long enough at that temp, using MRI to determine that. They do some MRI images first while asleep so they see the lesion, then take the temp up and maintain with the Tulsa, then after they do some more MRI to show they "burned" it all up. But it was all covered in the price you pay for me. I think my $31700 as a number of visits before and you might not need all, so you might get away a bit cheaper, hard to say on that. For me they ordered a lot, maybe you might be quicker since you have 3+4 as a max and might need less testing but they can order whatever you need.