being cleerly blocked
70 yr old male. Had a widowmaker 12/19, stented. presently Ldl 45, ApoB 47, tri 69, bp 114/70 so numbers excellent. Calcium score paid out of pocket/cardiologist refused to order, 898. I want to know my at risk soft plaque status.
Want the Cleerly test, cardiologist refuses to order "won't change treatment". Its info I want, fu. Regular provider refuses doesn't want to piss off cardiologist.
Local imaging center has a work around, requires an additional $800 expense for outside doctor to rx and interpret. The money means nothing, the attempt to force me into paying it means everything, so I am trying to figure out a way to switch cardiologists to one who will rx (wont be covered by insurance but imaging center requires an order).
So any ideas how to cardiologist shop within my Humana Medicare HMO? Tried to get office practice manage to call me, no luck.
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I agree that it is difficult to find physicians that will really partner with patients by allowing the patients to have a say in their testing and treatments. Treatment options, like CLEERLY are available, but seem difficult or "impossible" to access.
This is so frustrating for many of us. We are trying to get to "individual care" based on our unique health situation while "standard of care" wants to treat us as one of 300 million. SOC creates a situation wherein doctors, including cardiologists and PCPs, do not want the risk of 1) insurance company wrath and/or 2) the ire of their colleagues and/or 3) lawsuits.
Doctors have very limited time (an hour per year if we are lucky) to dedicate to our health assessment or treatment. Meanwhile, we patients have "all the time in the world" to assess our situations and potential treatments. It only makes sense that we should be able to impact our health care.
Very well said. Treating only what is easy to measure and prescribe for ignores many other contributing factors. We should be looking at each person's genome type starting early on. I just read "Beat the Heart Attack Gene" by Bale and Doneen and highly recommend it for anyone unwilling to be treated en mass. All roads should not lead to eventual surgery and its frequent reduction in quality of life. We are not on a conveyor belt and want individualized care, tailored to our specific differences from each other.
Fortunately, we do have some power over this.
I couldn’t agree with you more! We are the best stewards of our bodies & know them the best. Readily accessible information we can read ourselves and share with the doctors sometimes can aid them in determining a diagnosis. I wish they would give us more credence when we offer our opinions after tons of research about our symptoms & treatments.