payment options without breaking the bank?

I am on medicare and dont have much money.Medicade has ageed to pick up what medicare doesnt pay.I have been to three different surgions meetings and all of them require at lesst 800.00 up front for different things.Is there anyone who doesnt require so much up front?

I had surgery with DrMelkonian at Carolina Surgical Clinic... DrLowe is also in his office and performs WLS... they are in Charlotte.... I didnt have to pay anything up front. When I got approved for surgery I did have to pay my 10% surgical coinsurance up front which was around $250 based on my healthy insurance plan. Not sure if that would apply with medicare/medicade as well thou.

My insurance would not cover any of my surgery, I paid Dr Melkonian $ 8,400 up front, so really I think it all is different for each of us. You can apply Care credit card and pay it off in 18 months intrest free. Otherwise $800 sounds great to me. Good Luck

The only thing I had to pay up front was my visit to the Nutritionist because she won't bill insurance herself. Everything else was billed to my insurance first. Her visit was 200. Good luck. Take care. ~Ellen

You might check with the insurance specialists at each office. Ask them if they accept Medicare Assignment. As you may already know, when a provider accepts Medicare, they must accept assignment, meaning that they can't ask you to pay more for than the Medicare defined customary and reasonable charges; which normally are significantly discounted. Ask them if all or part of the "up front" charges could possibly submitted to Medicare/Medicaid and have you pay the appropriate co-pays. I know that many of the offices charge fees upfront to actually recapture their costs to evaluate and process all of the paperwork that is necessary for obtaining insurance authorization. I'm wondering if you can determine the best surgeon for you and then find out what tests the surgeon requires. Then, if you can work with your PCP to order all of the tests and submit the information to medicare for "precertification" so that the office wouldn't have to do as much. You'd definitely have more legwork to do on your own and I would want to see if your PCP is not only willing, but had success doing this before. Maybe in this way you can work something out with the office that would allow you to afford to take care of this portion of the costs. However, you need to be aware that you will probably have other costs involved and you'll need to be sure that Medicaid is going to pick up all of those costs. Lastly, remember that you will have to be able to afford the vitamins, a higher quality protein diet and most likely need supplements. Good luck with your efforts to find a way to pay for this. I know that there are other people on Medicare/Medicaid that have done this. I know that while $800.00 doesn't sound like much to people who have had to pay thousands, it's a lot of money to someone on a very tight fixed income. All the best in your quest for a healthier you. Barb

Try Dr Vollinger. He may be one of the providers who can assist. I've heard good things about him. Good Luck with your journey.