hmnr asg
Senior Member
- Messages
- 563
Hi there,
I like to share my experience regarding my visit with Dr Chheda at the OMI with everyone. This post includes a lot of my subjective opinion and so you may not agree with me at all. This post is mostly me ranting about my expenses that I incurred during my visit to the OMI which were not covered by my insurance (although I had been told they would be). So here it goes..
I first got struck down by CFS seven years ago (2010ish). I was in Canada at the time and the doctors ran me through the gamut of tests and naturally they came up empty handed. I decided to live with the condition until I moved to the US three years ago. I was seen by a neurologist and an internist at Stanford and they also made me go through a lot of tests and came up empty handed.
At this point I had resigned myself with living with CFS. I knew there was no cure (in my opinion). So when i found out there is a place called the "Open Medicine Institute" not so far from my house I decided to check it out. I had some money left in my flexible spending account (if you are not from the US, think of it as a medical saving account) and decided to check out the OMI.
I made an appointment not because i thought they would cure me, but I thought it would be nice to have a doctor actually believe what you are saying and not think you are a whack job who is making things up. I thought why not try, but I had very little expectations.
I got scheduled and saw Dr Chheda. I knew their clinic usually looks for underlying viral causes for chronic fatigue and they experiment with retroviral/antiviral medications (not sure on this one), but I had already gone through extensive tests and so i didnt really believe they would find something.
So i visited with her and she was very nice but i dont think she was any more qualified than my doctors in Stanford (who hold teaching positions at the medical school there and have tons of publications). So i thought, ok, lets go along, whats the harm in this?
So she examined me and gave me a very large set of blood tests. She told me this would be covered by my insurance. The blood tests were done by Quest Diagnostics. So i leave her office having had my prior expectations confirmed, nice people, but theyre not going to find anything.
Sure enough the test results came and there was very little useful information there. Two mutations in MTHFR (for which she told me i should take B12 and methylfolate, which i was already taking!). She gave me lyme test also which showed nothing.
Anyhow, the lyme test cost around 1200$, and my insurance company paid "some" of it (to be fair, she had warned me this may be partially covered by insurance and so i had set money aside for this).
The rest of the blood tests were DENIED by my insurance company, and now I have a 2500$ bill, aside from the portion of the lyme test and aside from the 500$ (Approx) a session with DR Chheda. I have been calling Quest Diagnostics, the OMI, my insurance company and back and forth since January of this year. This has caused a tremendous amount of stress on me. The visitation fees and the lyme test were fair and I had accounted for them and i knew they would be there up front. But I was not prepared for the additional 2500$ that I have to pay which Dr Chheda said would be covered.
The worst part is that her secretary, after my initial email did nothing more to help me in way of sending additional documents to the insurance company and stopped replying to my emails. In fact when i recently called my insurance company (I am calling them every other week now) they said they had requested additional documents which were not sent. I have written appeal letters, spent countless hours on the phone, begged various parties to help me, but nothing. The charges will go to the collection agency because I dont have the money, and this will have significant consequences on my life. So much for "whats the harm?" and of course the visit showed nothing useful to me.
Of course I am not saying that visiting OMI is a waste of time, but they are offering a very ambitious promise, that they "may" be able to help you with CFS, which as far as i know is incurable. And in way of managing this disease, you can get a lot of mileage from a good general doctor (my opinion of course).
At the end, if you have the money, why not try it, you might be one of those people who ends up showing something on one of their blood tests. And Dr Chheda is a genuinely nice person.
In case you are wondering, I have Aetna PPO insurance through my employer.
Sorry for the long rant!
H
I like to share my experience regarding my visit with Dr Chheda at the OMI with everyone. This post includes a lot of my subjective opinion and so you may not agree with me at all. This post is mostly me ranting about my expenses that I incurred during my visit to the OMI which were not covered by my insurance (although I had been told they would be). So here it goes..
I first got struck down by CFS seven years ago (2010ish). I was in Canada at the time and the doctors ran me through the gamut of tests and naturally they came up empty handed. I decided to live with the condition until I moved to the US three years ago. I was seen by a neurologist and an internist at Stanford and they also made me go through a lot of tests and came up empty handed.
At this point I had resigned myself with living with CFS. I knew there was no cure (in my opinion). So when i found out there is a place called the "Open Medicine Institute" not so far from my house I decided to check it out. I had some money left in my flexible spending account (if you are not from the US, think of it as a medical saving account) and decided to check out the OMI.
I made an appointment not because i thought they would cure me, but I thought it would be nice to have a doctor actually believe what you are saying and not think you are a whack job who is making things up. I thought why not try, but I had very little expectations.
I got scheduled and saw Dr Chheda. I knew their clinic usually looks for underlying viral causes for chronic fatigue and they experiment with retroviral/antiviral medications (not sure on this one), but I had already gone through extensive tests and so i didnt really believe they would find something.
So i visited with her and she was very nice but i dont think she was any more qualified than my doctors in Stanford (who hold teaching positions at the medical school there and have tons of publications). So i thought, ok, lets go along, whats the harm in this?
So she examined me and gave me a very large set of blood tests. She told me this would be covered by my insurance. The blood tests were done by Quest Diagnostics. So i leave her office having had my prior expectations confirmed, nice people, but theyre not going to find anything.
Sure enough the test results came and there was very little useful information there. Two mutations in MTHFR (for which she told me i should take B12 and methylfolate, which i was already taking!). She gave me lyme test also which showed nothing.
Anyhow, the lyme test cost around 1200$, and my insurance company paid "some" of it (to be fair, she had warned me this may be partially covered by insurance and so i had set money aside for this).
The rest of the blood tests were DENIED by my insurance company, and now I have a 2500$ bill, aside from the portion of the lyme test and aside from the 500$ (Approx) a session with DR Chheda. I have been calling Quest Diagnostics, the OMI, my insurance company and back and forth since January of this year. This has caused a tremendous amount of stress on me. The visitation fees and the lyme test were fair and I had accounted for them and i knew they would be there up front. But I was not prepared for the additional 2500$ that I have to pay which Dr Chheda said would be covered.
The worst part is that her secretary, after my initial email did nothing more to help me in way of sending additional documents to the insurance company and stopped replying to my emails. In fact when i recently called my insurance company (I am calling them every other week now) they said they had requested additional documents which were not sent. I have written appeal letters, spent countless hours on the phone, begged various parties to help me, but nothing. The charges will go to the collection agency because I dont have the money, and this will have significant consequences on my life. So much for "whats the harm?" and of course the visit showed nothing useful to me.
Of course I am not saying that visiting OMI is a waste of time, but they are offering a very ambitious promise, that they "may" be able to help you with CFS, which as far as i know is incurable. And in way of managing this disease, you can get a lot of mileage from a good general doctor (my opinion of course).
At the end, if you have the money, why not try it, you might be one of those people who ends up showing something on one of their blood tests. And Dr Chheda is a genuinely nice person.
In case you are wondering, I have Aetna PPO insurance through my employer.
Sorry for the long rant!
H
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