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Medicare not covering two year surveillance PET scanPET scan
I’ll be having my second annual PET scan done in two days. I just received an electronic message from the hospital that Medicare will not cover this PET scan.
My first annual PET scan last year was covered by Medicare. My understanding is that many of us have these annual surveillance procedures pretty much up to five years. Has anyone else recently been denied Medicare coverage for their second surveillance PET scan?
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Good Lord! I've had two in the last three months. I finished treatment at MD Anderson last May 15. The esophageal cancer is gone, but I turned up a small (1/2") spot in my upper left lung lobe. Since it's in a spot difficult to biopsy, they propose to treat it as malignant. I'm sure that'll be followed by one or more PETs. With this cancer's reputation for recurrence and late metastasis, cutting off PETs at one year after NED seems unduly harsh. I hope you appeal...
I had a PET scan after my last treatment covered by Medicare but they would only cover CT scans every 6 mos. after that.
I'm in New Zealand. We get 1 PET scan when initially diagnosed then nothing.
Also we do not get regular gastroscopies, CT or anything else. Just regular blood tests that's it