The morning-after edits, originally marked in italics, have been “accepted” (to borrow Word’s term) to show the final text.
Here are the results of my cost shopping research to get my skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, aka BCC) removed. The first edition was done in a hurry because the #bcsm (breast cancer social media) Twitter chat was happening, discussing costs and shopping, and they asked to see it.
It started in February when I decided to be proactive about finding out what this would cost me. I have $10,000 deductible insurance, so this is all coming out of my pocket. In previous months I’d gotten sick & tired of getting unexpected medical bills, and people at the hospital and insurance companies having wrong answers or no answers about “What’s this going to cost?” (CT scan, shingles vaccines) So, this time I published an RFP (request for proposals), the same way any business would do when making a substantial purchase decision. The RFP started:
Summary: I seek a care partner to remove a basal cell carcinoma (BCC) from my left jawline, under the ear. For a brief introduction, see blog post and photo (low quality) at http://bit.ly/ePDaveBCC.
I’m educating myself about the condition, I want to explore the available treatment options, and I’m “shopping” for a partner to do the work and follow-up with a good combination of quality, partnership, and cost.
It was a crazy thing to do, because hospitals don’t have RFP response departments (as many businesses do), and I was sure my request was largely uninformed. But I sure learned a lot from the comments on that blog post.