A Great Public Service

Today's New York Times includes a special three-story feature that focuses on the odyssey that cancer patients often face in getting screened, diagnosed, treated, and reimbursed.

As both a cancer veteran and a journalism neophyte, I tip my hat to Denise Grady, the Times reporter who wrote all three uniformly excellent stories.  They are packed with vital, potentially life-saving information as well as compelling personal stories.  

Make the time to read them—today—for your own sake and for anyone you care about who might be grappling with these challenges now or sometime down the road.

Before I get to the links, here is my highly edited version of the most salient points of the stories, which comport completely with my own experience:

1. Don't delay.  Get unusual or suspicious symptoms evaluated immediately.  There is absolutely nothing to be gained—and possibly everything to be lost—by waiting.
2. Get a second opinion.  Pay for it out of pocket if you have to, but see a top expert at a top institution, even if you aren't going to be treated there.  If the second doctor concurs with the first, you will have great peace of mind going forward.  If you get conflicting opinions—as I have, more than once—you will have more work to do to sort things out, but it will absolutely be worth it in the end.
3. Don't back down.  If your insurance company denies coverage, rejects treatment, or refuses reimbursement, FIGHT.  Find someone to help you advocate—or to do it on your behalf—and don't give up.  

Links to the stories:

• Cancer Patients, Lost in a Maze of Uneven Care
• Obstacles to Care:  Doing Battle With the Insurance Company in a Fight to Stay Alive
• What You Should Know:  Push Hard for the Answers You Require

The first story includes a link to another incredible resource, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Treatment Guidelines, which gives nearly encyclopedic information about many kinds of cancer (although not, for some reason, Hodgkin's lymphoma).  It also includes an interactive decision tree that allows you to specify the kind of cancer you have (type, stage, tumor size, number of lymph nodes involved, and other characteristics) and then provides a summary of the relevant treatment guidelines.  They are just that—guidelines—but they provide a helpful overview of what the mythical average patient can expect under given circumstances.

Go.  Read them now.