[biffnoble]

Hi Dale:

You have my sympathies.

I assume you paid cash for your German surgery.
This is already onerous/unacceptable financially as ADR is certainly as good a treatment as any "conventional" spine treatment covered by ins. cos. in the US.

For the self-pay, out-of-country ADR recipient, post-op life can be fraught with disaster. Every prospective out-of-country ADR hopeful should be very clear on this.

This is something I've tried to express in previous posts.

In the out-of-country scenario one is essentially paying to be a trial subject (same as "conventional" US surgery), exchanging disability A (pre-op state) for disability B (post op state). The B outcome may result in a greatly improved quality of life, a life equivalent to pre-out status, or sadly, a worse status.

Additionally the self paying patient risks being ostracized by the medical insurance industry due to having had a non-FDA approved surgery. This at minimum may result in being refused treatment coverage for the affected area or worse refused any future ins. coverage at all.

One lumbar ADR Dr. B. patient wound up post op with severe intractable chronic pain which his HMO, Kaiser, treated for awhile but ultimately refused continued treatment for because his surgery involved a non-FDA approved treatment and their lack of clinical knowledge of his treatment and how to deal w/it post-op. Thus in severe pain he was put into medical limbo, effectively self insured, and on the way to financial ruin. He used to post on ADRsupport but has disappeared (as far as I can tell) for the last 6-8 months. I wish him luck.

For those that have the ADR surgery out-of-country and are lucky enough to find a US/local Dr. to follow them, making the billing "work" is a potential disaster. If they do get followed/covered there's always the possibility that this situation will end either because the Dr. moves on, determines the patient requires no further supervision, or because the insurance co. notifies their practice that all ADR coverage is explicitly not covered and that if the provider inappropriately bills for ADR services those services will not be reimbursed, thus pushing the costs back onto the patient and into the self insurance Twilight Zone.

Out-of-country ADR puts an additional nasty twist into the equation because of the use of materials besides the discs that are not FDA approved.

Moral: suffer until the procedure you need is: A) FDA approved and B) covered by your insurance (3, 5, 10 years off): including both the implantation and long term followup costs. Or potentially take a tremendous risk and go out-of-country.

Any way you look at it, It's a s----y row to hoe.

People in severe chronic debilitating pain, simply wanting return to being productive useful people with minimal pain, are faced with going w/"conventional" treatments w/checkered track records (don't kid yourself laminectomy, fusion, etc., aren't any better proven statistically than ADR) and questionable outcomes, or risking everything (unless they're Bill Gates) paying in effect, for a medical Hail Mary.

For those brave/driven souls that bit the bullet and have gone out-of-country and succeeded, one offers enthusiastic congratulations, hopes for a trouble free future, and a tiny feeling of envy.

For the folks that have had to deal w/the reality of continuing/increased pain post op and the financial abyss of being self insuring, my deepest heartfelt sympathy. And I'd admonish all that take this route to understand the risks, and if they do go out-of-country to hopefully share their strategy/journey with the rest of us.

This is really a political issue at its core.
The role of the USA in caring for its people, has since WWII, sadly diminished to a current Dickensonian level. The State is supposed to realize that caring for its people and restoring them to health and functionality is vital both for the health of the individual and the society as a whole.

The US is reliant politically/ecomnomically on getting new blood as opposed to fixing existing bodies. Survival of the fittest. And the notion that healthcare should be in the province of for profit entities is ludicrous, that paradigm is great for those citizen that are genetically endowed with healthy genes, and that manage to avoid being rear ended, or dropped on the head. They generally are at the top of the economic heap so in addition to being healthy and thus not needing healthcare they can bear the onus of the ridiculous premiums the health ins. cos. charge. Insane!

To make real change we must reform our government institutions (Starting w/the FDA, and moving on to medicare,etc.) and remove healthcare from the clutches of the private sector.

Until then, many of us will feel like we're caught in the cross-hairs, faced w/unfaceable dilemmas.

THE US HEALTHCARE SYSTEM MUST BE REFORMED! Big pharma must be made accountable. The government should be a competitor with big pharma in developing drugs that have little profit potential because they're comprised of common non copyrightable materials/processes.

The country is politically allopathic. It's time for a paradigm shift. All citizens have a basic right to health care and good quality of life. In addition, nutritional deprograming (the junk food that TV and other advertising has hypnotized us with) and reeducation will be vital in making the populace healthier and less needful of medical care.

Work politically for change. Vote, make your concerns known to your representatives. Only then will things begin to change.

Good luck, to us all.