Medicare form ignores PCa

I used my Medicare coverage to pay for most of my IMRT radiation costs this past summer. As a result, I now receive in the mail on a regular basis the report form, "Medicare Summary Notice."

It gives me the usual Medicare coverage information: "amount charged," "Medicare approved," "Medicare paid provider," etc. Stuff that's nice to know.

I got the latest one in the mail the other day. But at the end of the form there was this "General Information" section. It had paragraphs on how to appeal denial of claims, open enrollment, etc. There was also one more paragraph in this section that read:

"Early detection is your best protection. Schedule your mammogram today, and remember that Medicare helps pay for screening mammograms."

That's it. No mention of screening for PCa, or for any of the other cancers, for that matter. Evidently, even the U.S. government is so into thinking pink that this gets reflected even in its official documents, or at least in this one.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the BC movement is having such success, and I don't begrudge them one little bit any of the money they bring in for BC research, etc., especially since they work so hard for it. I guess I'm just a little miffed that my own government doesn't at least recognize the rest of us who just happen to have another kind of cancer.

I'm going to point out this item in their document to the Medicare ombudsman office:

www.medicare.gov/navigation/help-and-support/ombudsman.aspx

and see if I get a reply.

Sometimes I do feel like "we just don't get no respect."

There are disease lobbies and they have impact.

Lieutenant--It's going to get worse! I fully support bc funding & have published articles in our local paper on both bc & pca; in 3 years the only mention of pca has been an article from the gov't that pans screening and my articles..In the obituaries, bc is mentioned frequently while men just die of cancer...Last year 33,720 men lost their lives to pca while, in comparison, 39,520 women died from bc..That's more lives lost in 1 year than our 81/2 year war in vietnam..
It's interesting to note that the same gov't task force that recommended against screening for breast cancer for women in their 40's has now recommended against all screening for men for pca. The task force's recommendation for screening women was overruled, and many women's lives were saved..Just so I don't appear political, both Obama and now Romney (Sept) have had their psa tests..Go figure!
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70 yr old viet vet--dx'd sept 2010--psa 4.89--ct & bone scans clear--5 g8's and 4 g4's out of 10 with ece..imrt rad finished in feb 2011--79.2 rads and lupron for 3 years--1 year to go...