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Has anyone had Medicare cover their genetic testing?

Aortic Aneurysms | Last Active: Mar 25 9:13am | Replies (17)

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@hsminc

We don't have Medicare B (only A-hospital) but my husband's bill was sent to medicare B by mistake. (That is another long debacle story.)
If you go to the genetics testing website and look at prices, you may find that the bill (if you ordered and paid it yourself) would be less than if you used a provider.
Whatever, I don't think the genetic testing is useful. The genetic testing for aortic aneurysm risk looks at whether you have a connective tissue disorder (e.g., Marfans)- and not other risk factors. (This can be done with a physical exam.) My husband was so relieved when his genetic tests came back totally negative but these DNA tests probably did not capture the risk. I say this because his first cousin (same age) had a dissected aortic mid level aortic aneurysm (same as my husband's) and now he has a descending aortic aneurysm and an abdominal aneurysm. This cousin's father clearly died from a ruptured thoracic aneurysm (where it was, we do not know). and my husband's mother died from a couple of cerebrovascular bleeds. She also had giant cell arteritis (which is consistent with connective tissue disorders - at least on one of the charts).
I don't know whether our billing mess with the genetics testing group and Medicare and our commercial insurance was ever resolved. In the end, we never received a bill from the genetic testing group - or at least I never paid one. The provider was supposed to bill our commercial insurance and not send the numbers to the genetics testing group. I do know that Medicare refused to pay - but this could have been because we don't have Medicare B - not because it was not a covered benefit. If you went through your provider, rather than ordering direct through the genetics testing group, your provider should have checked out coverage before ordering the testing - and I think they should also have figured out whether this testing would be informative for you. If you have no physical signs of connective tissue disorder, maybe it should not have been ordered. This was the case with my husband.

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Replies to "We don't have Medicare B (only A-hospital) but my husband's bill was sent to medicare B..."

Two cardiologists thought he had some characteristics of Marfan Syndrome..