Case manager provided by your health insurance plan

I don’t have an answer to your concern; however, I have received the same offer several times and have chosen to “let it be”. As cancer patients we may need the “best medical prescription available” -not a choice made by our insurance company. They may want to offer something helpful, but that’s not what my “gut” tells me. Be Leary… not Regretful! You decide!

I've had extensive experience with case managers. They can be extremely helpful in transition of care from hospital to home or nursing home to home as they coordinate transportation, home health aides, pharmacy and other ancillary services. They can also be helpful in accessing supportive services such as physical therapy or behavioral services that are covered under your benefit. They are less helpful when you are on a course of treatment with which you are comfortable and have few questions or when they really have little understanding of your specific condition or available therapies. It is the rare insurance company case manager who has an understanding of NETs.
So my advice: If you are confident in your current course of care and your claims are getting paid as you expect, skip the case manager. Otherwise, talk to them but be very specific in asking what they can do for you.

I have also received this call many times. I also let it be. My treatment is working. I don't want to do anything to mess that up.

I was recently DENIED for a mapping procedure prior to Y90 for my NETS. My doctor is appealing, but I haven’t been contacted about a case manager. I would agree with @tomatlanta that a case manager might not have knowledge of NETS.

Sometimes there are special 3rd party advocates for patients on Lanreotide. I'm familiar with that. It's not really a case manager though. I'll take a stab at how that can work for patients. I'm a patient on Lanreotide and this has been my experience. Not an expert. The situation with Lanreotide is, I think, unique. Your insurance company may require you to be involved with a 3rd party company that works as a qualifier/ enrollment assistant/ benefit advocate with the three groups involved. That would be the Insurance company, injection provider (IE: Hospital or Dr Office), and the manufacturer of the drug. It's all big money and could be important that you do what's required by your insurance company to receive Lanreotide for the least cost out of pocket to you. I think we all need to be our own best advocate in these medical matters. For example: It's possible that you might get billed from your provider for services when in reality a claim should be submitted somewhere else. I've found in my case the 3rd party advocate can help resolve those matters.

My wife was on Cobra the past year, so the transition from my group health policy to Cobra was challenging, and when we got the call we decided to use it. We were pleased as she was an advocate for us in cutting through the red tape the insurance company attempted to deny treatment, but between the advocate and the doctors appealing the denial we eventually got it all approved.

Recently I started working with a case manager through my insurance plan. I decided to do this because I am consulting with a NET provider out of state. I feel like a case manager would be helpful in navigating this should I travel for treatment. So far she has done some leg work for me and that has been helpful as I work during the day and can't always make phone calls. The case manager also had suggestions of additional resources that I was not aware of. She has no experience with NETs but that's okay with me and I am not relying on her for this.

Thank you all so much for your very helpful comments. We really appreciate it.