So much THIS!!!

I'm getting sick and tired of docs not recommending what they know is appropriate testing/treatment because they also know the insurance company is either not going to cover it or fight them on it. (certainly not limited to this issue but happened once, see below)

This is what happened with my PET scan. "You should have this but, oh well, your insurance won't cover it".

I went deep in to pay for it, then fought the insurance company for about 6 mos and they finally paid up.

I can site examples of incredibly inexpensive things in this realm as well. It's nuts. How about you tell me what is appropriate and I'll decide if it's worth the fight? or the cost?

Your situation might be different, but while stage 4 prostate cancer is "incurable," if the number of bone metastases is small (e.g. < 5) and your health is reasonably good, your oncology team might consider it to be "oligometastatic" and still treat it with curative *intent*. At least one of the doctors who pioneered that approach practices at the Mayo Clinic, although it is quite widespread now (including at my local Cancer Centre here in Canada).

You won't live forever (who does?), but in a situation like that you might still get "lots of years", as the lead of my team told me early on. If you don't have too many metastases, it's worth asking your team what different treatment options are available. Note that "curative intent" means stronger treatments with more side-effects, so it comes with a physical and emotional price tag.