Cost of PSA Test

  I just got the bill for the PSA test that I pretty much forgot to get...

We're all getting this simple one-tube blood draw for PSA and I also check for Free PSA as I know many of you do.

I just changed insurance companies and plans, so now I actually see the bills - shame on me I guess for not knowing, but just wonder what the range is?

My Laboratory Fees were $374.00; and the "Phlebotomy Fee (needle stick)" was $147.00.  I live just West of Chicago in one of the 'burbs. 

What are the rest of you seeing in your bills for this 2 minute stick and 5 minute assay?

Buzz

Buzz,
Welcome to Healing Well.

about three months ago this question came up as part of a discussiion about getting results to 1 vs 2 decimal places.
We compared the price of a Diagnostic PSA (2 decimal, and a Screening PSA (1 decimal ) and found them to be virtually identical: between $50 to $100. Surprisingly one lab actually charged less for the diagnostic test. My wife called labs in Rochester NY and other guys did their area.
The Phelobotomy charge ranged from $15 to $25 (or maybe 30, I don't remember)

We did not test free PSA but it cannot be much more.

Call the lab. They might have added a $225 walletectomy charge by mistake or maybe you bought the three test package deal. ;-)

Jeff

My Laboratory Fees were $374.00

 

Odds are that you'll see the insurance company say something like-> Charges reduced by $300.00 per agreement.

That cost is more than excessive. It is this type of thing that really angers me because if you don't have insurance, you have to foot the entire bill.

My insurance pays $24 for psa tests. The lab charges, about $100.

Get this one: The lab charged $3,000 to read my last biopsy.My insurer paid $240.00. Without health insurance many people die for a reason.

WOW !! I guess while living in Ontario and with the benefits of our OHIP (government) program, I forget what it might be like if I lived elsewhere and had to pay..

Here, although PSA tests are NOT covered by the program (still quite a controversy) I did pay $ 20.00 for every test, over the last 15 years. However, once you have been diagnosed with PC cancer, all the followup tests are then FREE!

Sounds nice compared to what Buzzdriver is being charged but I truly wished I was still paying the
twenty bucks.

Rob,
I'm with you.
1)Standardize and publish the costs.
2)Reduce the salaries of non profit execs.
3)Get rid of a few while you are at it.

Don't know where you live but it might be instructive if we all looked up the salaries of the top Health care execs in our states. Shameful.

And just in case Dr Melani is reading this, do you honestly feel you deserved that $3 million bonus? Why were they paying you a salary? Two million isn't enough?

Ok I'll get off my soapbox.
This topic certainly got my pee pads twisted in a bunch.
Jeff

Between my uro and the lab, the average charge for my PSA tests are $125, but our insurance pays 100% for it every time, then AFLAC pays me 75.00 for taking it, not a bad deal.

Buzz,
I think Medicare pays about $50.

TC-LasVegas said...
...I am working on a Nevada State grant for 21g to test 500 men for fathers day...I know the typical cost of a PSA test should be around 85 bucks, less when done in bulk like we will be...

Tony,

This sounds like a wonderful idea...it truly does have the potential to be powerful.  I'm wondering how your are also supplying the necessary and appropriate information about PSA testing and PC to your targetted participants.  Hopefully, the "decision aid" resources are a part of your grant budget as well.

Ya know, the whole ACS guideline "controversy" is centered right in this area.  Some people who failed to actually read the ACS guidelines (and read only the media coverage of the ACS guidelines) think that the American Cancer Society came out against PSA testing of men.  Of course, this is far from the truth. 

The basics of testing were unchanged in the new ACS guidelines, but the guidelines were specifically written to be clearly against the kind of "community screening" programs you might find in your office building's lobby or in a bus parked outside the YMCA—unless they have the infrastructure to handle the complicated pretest discussion and whatever follow-up is necessary.  The published guideline's words are: 

"Men should either receive this information directly from their healthcare providers or be referred to reliable and culturally appropriate sources."

An example of how this is being deployed, for example, is at M. D. Anderson where health fairs with an emphasis on education have replaced those mass screenings in the last couple of years.

The gist of what is new in the ACS guideline is a firm end to the notion, still held by some clinicians, that screening for prostate cancer is the same as colorectal cancer screening or cholesterol screening:

"There has to be a conversation," says John Davis, assistant professor in the department of urology at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "And these [ACS] guidelines give some very nice bulleted points and Web links you could build into an information sheet and give to patients."

Hopefully, you budget includes the resources to provide the decision-aid/information as well as the screening test itself.

best regards...

 

Post Edited (Casey59) : 5/5/2010 7:15:24 AM (GMT-6)

Another thing to add, call your insurance company, they will tell you the cheapest place, they love doing that stuff, that is how they make money

Casey,

I am very hopeful that we can convey the right message to anyone who shows up for testing. As an UsTOO chapter president, I take very seriously the need to provide education and support for those affected by prostate cancer. While I am vocally against the recent ACS announcements, it isn't because I disagree in total concept with them. It is because they are confusing and ambiguous enough to virtually everyone who reads them from doctors to patients.

For me the message is simple:
1> Testing may reveal a cancer that does not require immediate treatment.
2> It is better to be educated on prostate cancer before ever treating prostate cancer.
3> While testing will pick up many cases of the disease that don't need treatment, it is still better to know the threat than it is to ignore it.

I know men that will not be tested now because they have seen the ACS guidelines and have taken the attitude that testing is useless. The fact is that testing is the only manageable way of controlling and monitoring prostate cancer in the early stages. But the key is that there then needs to be an active support and education group trying to hit the newly diagnosed patients where the rubber meets the road ~ That is what our group and the ACS is supposed to be doing.

Our 21k grant is to provide a means for men on fathers day to get a free test that their family would like to encourage them to do, or that because of a terrible Las Vegas economy they lack the financial means to be tested. When we greet the men before they go in, they will receive information about testing, about UsTOO, how to receive local support and information, and a way to speak to informed survivors and the professionals at the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada.

I am fully aware that the ACS is against that. But they have been all over the place about cancer screenings in the last year and it reflects poor guidance and leadership in my book.

Peace,

Tony

Tony,
I am now a poster child for testing. As I've said many times, I always presumed that with all the bills I got each year for tests I did not understand, nor know how to ask for or refuse, everything was there. I never argued about the bills.
It was only when a nurse was leafing though a file looking for the last tetanus shot last July that she noticed there had not been a PSA for years. She asked, I did it, and the firestorm of exams, DRE, tests, and more tests started on the road to DaVinci and now IGRT.
You'll remember I came out of oblivious happiness into 9 of 12 cores positive with mostly 4+4. Post-op was 4+5.
The docs (multiple) figured I would have made perhaps another year before systemic mets set in if I had just ignored it.

So I owe a lot, perhaps more than I realize, to an attentive nurse and a PSA test.

Go out there and keep doing what you are doing. If I had walked past a screening session, I probably would have stopped just out of principle. Just wish there had been one in my path earlier.

TC-LasVegas said...
When we greet the men before they go in, they will receive information about testing, about UsTOO, how to receive local support and information, and a way to speak to informed survivors and the professionals at the Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada.

Tony,

Thanks for your reply.  Sounds like your program recognizes, and will be in-step with, the recent changes made to the ACS guidelines which are focused on "community screening" programs.

Your Father's Day program sounds like a great idea.  Best wishes for a successful day...I believe it has the potential to make a difference!

best regards