Cancer Treatment Centers of America

SavedbyGrace - my best friend's son is chief of staff of hematology oncology at Dana Farber in Boston. He has always told me to go to a teaching/University-affiliated hospital. So I am with the University of Florida/Orlando Health and they send him everything, so he's my second opinion. If you can find someone you like at Emory, that would be awesome. They have a very good reputation from what I have read. You should be able to find someone you like there.

This BC.org site is a wealth of information and support, so stay connected and ask questions!!

Don't know about y'all, but I think Massage Envy, Starbucks and the local curandera are a lot cheaper for coffee, massage and herbs;)

Sbelizabeth.....I, am GLAD you brought this up...I knew all about how they are and yes my friend was hammered with these treatments...I knew better...We do not see their Commercials that much anymore...but when I did I just wondered How misleading they were...Liz

Saved - you are right all BC/BS plans are not the same. My son has the same insurance company but amuch better plan than we do.

I meant to mention I haven’t seen those infomercials for CTCA lately. Also my SIL called them about her husband’s cancer and they wanted $25k deposit and that was many years ago.

Okay do tell sandcastle.

Diane

Hi all, I just wanted to clarify that CTCA does not always push for chemo. I had to push for it, request a 2nd opinion and have my case put before the tumor board

Sand castle, it was outside of CTCA at university of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I really like this U of M Dr and if I switch I will go to him. It is just that he is so busy and the wait time in the hospital to see him is several hours he is always double booked. I guess that meanshe is good . Here at CTCA there is very little wait time.

No surprise if they don’t take Medicare.

Someone like the person you mentioned in a desperate situation being Stage IV and the cancer spreading everywhere is looking for a miracle. I think it’s cruel to offer false hope. If they can truly provide alternative drugs that could stimy the profession then that’s different.

I know several people who went the route of clinical trials that didn’t work unfortunately. I understand they are trials and a last resort.

On a positive note there are multiple ladies living long lives with a Stage IV DX.

Diane

Bump...

I did most of my treatment inZion. Flew out there from NJ. Our insurance changed and now Philly is available so I just transferred there. Pm me any questions you want and I’ll help you out .

I went to the AZ campus for a workup when I was first diagnosed because I had heard good things about them from people who had taken treatment there. I spent three days there, the first person I met with was the financial counselor, who took my insurance information, and had me sign all the paperwork stating I would pay anything my insurance didn't pay for. She also told me that they didn't take medicare, so if my cancer were to progress to the point where I went on disability and had to go on medicare I couldn't be a patient there anymore. She also gave me one more form to take home for my husband to sign stating that he also agreed to pay for anything my insurance didn't pay for. Next was an intake appointment with a internist who explained my path report. Very likeable, did a quick physical exam, explained a lot of the technical terms to me. Then I met with a guy from their volunteer organization. He was nice too, but kind of pastor-y. Then had some blood drawn. I think after that there might have been a tour or something and I got some lunch. They scheduled me for CT scans of my bones and thorax and abdomen, and a breast MRI for the following day. I think I met with the BS that afternoon, and she basically told me I should have chemo before surgery, that I wasn't a great candidate for lumpectomy and that she'd do either a skin sparing or nipple sparing mastectomy depending on my response to chemo, and full axillary dissection. The third day, I met with the MO who gave me the results of my scans, explained her treatment plan, including all the other drugs they'd be giving me and some more OTD drugs they recommend on top of that. She also went over my bloodwork and recommended some supplements. After that, I met with a naturopathic doctor who recommended a bunch of supplements that I could get to help with chemo side effects and fix things they found in my bloodwork. And then I met with a nutritionist who gave me some recommendations for diet.

I did not treat there. I was really turned off by how focused they were on getting paid. And no way am I going to have my husband agree to pay my medical bills - if they want to get paid, they have to keep me alive. Overall, I felt like the doctors were nice, but they had a more is more attitude toward treatment, whereas I take a less is more attitude towards it. Turns out, scans to look for metastasis aren't really done anymore because there's no survival benefit to finding the metastasis before you have symptoms, you just spend more time in treatment.

I am treating at Mayo Clinic and I picked them over CTCA for several reasons: 1) it's not for profit. They took my insurance info but beyond that, they haven't ever talked about money. My husband hasn't signed anything. 2) they take a less is more approach to treatment. They'll give me a SNB and only do a full ALD if its needed. 3) they offered me a clinical trial which would have given me a targeted therapy instead of chemo. I liked the idea of not doing chemo, and I love experiments so I was all over it. 4) Mayo has proton beam radiation, which supposedly minimizes collateral damage compared to traditional radiation. CTCA did not have that even though they market themselves as having the latest technology. 5) While it seemed like the doctors at CTCA read all the latest studies, it seemed like the doctors at Mayo wrote the studies. 6) While I was at CTCA, someone called a code blue and an ambulance came and took the guy to a hospital. I thought it was hospital??? At least at Mayo if something else goes wrong during my treatment, they can handle it in-house. 7) CTCA seemed like they'd dump you when things got really bad, like if I went metastatic and had to go on medicare, or if things went south and I wanted to do hospice - they had no hospice affilation and told me I was getting ahead of myself when I asked about end of life care. 8) The doctors at Mayo were just more credentialed. CCTA had DOs and doctors that went to foreign medical schools. There are some doctors at Mayo who went to foreign medical schools but its because they're from those countries, not because they couldn't get in anywhere here.

I've since flunked out of the clinical trial and was rediagnosed with a different subtype of cancer, so I'm in chemo now and I feel like they're throwing the kitchen sink at me. Had I gone to CTCA I don't know that I ever would have gotten the correct diagnosis, but to be fair it was pure luck that I got rediagnosed at Mayo. I'm pretty happy with the care I get at Mayo. I felt like at CTCA they just assembly-line people through, give everyone the standard of care treatment, and collect insurance money. A month or so after my three day workup, which included no treatment, I got a bill from them for $26,000. No kidding. It turned out to be a mistake - they never filed a claim with my insurance company. The amount they were reimbursed from my insurance company was about 20% of that, so that's the markup you get as an out-of-pocket patient there. When I look at my claims from Mayo, they're reimbursed about 75% of what they charge and they say they have better out of pocket rates, but I haven't had to look into that. I do think CTCA does a better job of spending time with the patient up front, which is really helpful when you've just been diagnosed and you're scared and don't know what to expect, and it seems like a more emotionally supportive environment. But I'm glad I went to Mayo because my MO doesn't think so much about what insurance will pay for, he decides what he thinks is the best therapy and then writes my insurance company to get it approved (and so far they've approved everything, even Ibrance for neoadjuant therapy even though it's only approved for stage 4).

That being said, I'd probably go to CTCA before I'd go to some random oncology group where you have to drive all over town to get care, and then get referred out to surgeons, etc. I would only go to places where the doctors all work together and can easily communicate about your case. But I agree with people who say its best to go to a teaching hospital for care. They have access to more trials and generally have more credentialed doctors and better outcomes, and its a better place to be if something else goes wrong during your treatment.

The surgeon's rationale was that there was one node that biopsied positive for breast cancer, and that node couldn't be located becuase according to their pathologist, the marker clip had migrated. So the surgeon could no longer be sure she removed the positive node without doing a full ALD. Still, she would start with a SNB and if she happened to find the marker in there and it was clear, she'd stop with the SNB.

Mayo does not say anything about the marker having moved, in fact they tell me it is firmly in the node, and I've had imaging there four times now (mammo/US before treatment started, two US guided biopsies as part of a study, and another mammo/US when they thought my tumor was growing on treatment). They plan to do SNB and ALD if sentinel nodes aren't clear. If it's not marked, they obviously know where to find it so I assume they can mark it before surgery if necessary.

I have not been treated there. But I read a true story of a woman who had cancer and went to their center. The husband wrote the story and the point was that they kept treating his wife with painful treatments even though they knew she was terminal and did share this with the couple. This was interesting.