Misled

A friend had his knees injected with stem cells and it worked for him. Flexible and pain free. The copay on his insurance was something like $150. Sign me up! When I was with Aetna Medicare they told me they wouldn't cover this treatment. Even though it's less invasive and less expensive than a knee replacement, that's the way they wanted to go. Needless to say, I don't want to do that. I've yet to meet anyone who's tickled to death with their knee replacement. In fact I know several people who have flat out refused to do the second knee once the first one was done.

I got the phone number, called and mentioned that I was interested in the stem-cell injections and asked if they took Medicare. They assured me that they did and scheduled me for a consultation.

I went in and I chatted with the chiropractor/nurse practitioner about how it worked. I found out it is nothing like the useless hyaluronic acid injections I had several years ago. The injection is a one time event and starts to work almost immediately. At this point I asked about what my co-pay would be. I was told that since I'm on regular Medicare with a supplemental policy, that my deductible is $180. Well, isn't life grand, I've probably met all but $40 of that. It was sounding good to me. Now we needed to X-Ray my knees to make sure that I was a good candidate. (Apparently, if you are bone on bone, you are NOT a good candidate.)  This was on Friday so I was to return on Monday to review the X-Rays.

I went back on Monday at the scheduled time and the doctor wasn't there, unexpected absence but the other doctor could go over the X-Rays with me. Okay. Fine. He's telling me how it works, which I've heard before. Then he told me there are three different types of stem cells all with different price tags attached. That's easy. I probably want the one that Medicare pays for but I would like to know what the "top of the line" will cost if I pay the difference on what Medicare doesn't cover.

Apparently the fill-in doctor hadn't been trained on that and was unable to tell me anything about what Medicare covers. As a consequence, yet another appointment had to be scheduled.

When I went back on Wednesday, I was told that Medicare did not cover any injection. "Wait, that's not what you said before." It seems I "misunderstood". Medicare covers the X-Rays and the consultation, but not the injections which range from $2,000 up to $6000 per knee.

Mark was with me, which prevented me from getting into an argument with the guy but seriously, I typically do not "misunderstand". I spent the last 20 years of my working life taking complex information and making it understandable to newbies, non-techies, and novices. You can't be successful at that if you constantly "misunderstand". He deliberately misled me so he could charge Medicare for three office visits and a set of X-Rays, and he might even get lucky and get $12K out of me.

Will I get the injections? Most likely I will. Will I get them from this guy? Most certainly not. I don't feel I can trust him.