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PROSTATE cancer is the second most common cause of male cancer-related mortality in Australia. In fact, more men die from prostate cancer in Australia each year than women die from breast cancer.
What complicates prostate cancers is that many will not be clinically significant, so there is a need to minimise the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment in these cases, but at the same time improve the diagnosis and treatment of the more aggressive cancers.
Most capital cities have private facilities to surgically treat prostate cancer, including robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy, which is becoming increasingly available in some public hospitals.
Robotic surgery is expensive. Hospitals have to spend large amounts of money to buy the instrumentation, which often come with high-cost servicing contracts.
One reason for the high cost to the patient is consumables — the throwaway items associated with the technology. Private health funds are not obliged to cover the costs of consumables, which can leave patients with out-of-pocket costs of up to $4000.
The other reason for huge out-of-pocket expenses is that, in some instances, the surgical gap payments above Medicare and private health fund rebates can be more than $10 000.
On the basis of consumables and surgeon’s fees, the cost of robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy in the private system can be substantial.
So it was probably only a matter of time before there were crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to pay for expensive prostate cancer surgery.
Crowdfunding campaigns for donations to pay for surgery have always made me sad. Neurosurgery, in particular, seems to be a reason for crowdfunding, but I had hoped that this would never be necessary in my specialty.
However, I recently saw a crowdfunding campaign through social media for a young man who needed robotic radical prostatectomy “ASAP” and was unable to meet the costs of treatment.
I was moved by this man’s story, and it prompted me to try to help him in some way. I resorted to social media to advocate against crowdfunding for access to prostate cancer surgery.
This resulted in offers to the crowdfunding website from two experienced and respected surgeons to carry out the surgery for free. The response was: “Thank you for your message, it is very much appreciated. We have already committed with the surgeon, Dr xxxx at xxxx, who has handled [the patient’s] case from day 1”.
While the doctor–patient relationship is special, with some patients going to great lengths to maintain it, this response raises a number of concerns. Has the patient discussed his problems with meeting the costs of surgery with his surgeon? If the patient cannot afford the cost of surgery in the private sector, why aren’t there options in the public sector to provide equivalent quality of care?
I would not be able to sleep if I knew that a patient of mine had to beg for public sympathy and crowdfunding to pay for my services, and it seems likely in this case that the surgeon is not aware of the patient’s crowdfunding activities.
Radical prostatectomy has changed significantly in the past 20 years — from a high blood loss, long hospital stay and primarily extirpative procedure to one that combines sound oncological principles and maximises functional preservation. It is increasingly viewed as a subspecialty.
Recent research shows robotic prostatectomy can offer improved outcomes and reduce costs. It is currently offered in high-volume prostate cancer centres at public hospitals in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
In the public system, audits demonstrate surgery outcomes for individual hospitals that, in most cases, show patients should expect first class cancer care.
Just as patients can identify which private doctor or hospital they prefer for their care, they can also readily identify which public hospitals are offering high-volume prostate cancer surgical services.
The prospect of a long waiting time for prostate cancer surgery in a public hospital can encourage patients to seek private care. However, prostate cancer is relatively slow growing and the vast majority of patients can safely take the usual 90-day wait after a request for admission for public hospital surgery.
Crowdfunding for this treatment should not be necessary in Australia. Do we, as a profession, need to better understand the financial, as well as health, impacts on our patients when we advise on treatments and procedures for life-threatening conditions?
Professor Henry Woo is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. On Twitter @DrHWoo
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I have been given a quote leaving a net payment of $15k. This is for the Surgeons cost only. This is my annual income
My husband had robotic prostatectomy last Nov 29, 2016. He has retired more than a year ago. If not for the superannuation he had taken, probably we will be unable to cope with over $10k out of pocket expenses from the surgery. In WA, there is only one private hospital with a Da Vinci robot. No public hospital yet has this machine. So we we have to fork out $2,500 upfront on the day of surgery.
PET scan is not covered either by private health fund and Medicare. Surgeons fee was 5k. HBf contributed around 3k for the total fee of 8k. Since biopsy and surgery, we were out of pocket of around over 10k. Just sharing our experience in terms of the financial aspect of the procedure.
I do have top medical insurance which I have had for well over 30 years.
I have just had a robotic prostectomy. My specialist was very understanding, as to my finances were limited & he agreed to a discount which was appreciated.
Same can’t be said for the anethatist who would not tell me what my out of pocket expenses would be.
I would like to think that a professional would be able to give at least approximate of out of pocket but no information, even after several calls to his office. Needless to say I have a large (anethatist) credit card bill and will have cop credit card fees as I can’t pay this bill all in one go.
Apart from this small gripe I appreciate what my surgeon did for me. I would certainly recommend this surgeon to other people as his service was thorough. I respect the surgeon decision to discount his fees, I wouldn’t tell any one of his decision to reduce his fees to me.
Also a big thank you to the hospital.
I am now recovering well, and everything my surgeon told me about what happens after surgery is accurate.
The refusal of free surgery should not automatically suggest that the call for financial help is a scam. It might even be the other way around. Some patients are totally convinced when their doctors imply that outcomes under a lessor practitioner will result in a less favourable outcome. It’s a useful tactic to justify charging substantial gaps for private patients or to deter a patient considering treatment in a public hospital where a ‘trainee’ could (OMG) do their operation.
Given the response to the offer of free surgery (i.e. the offer turned down) I have to know more before ruling out the possibility that this is a scam – a sob story to support use of crowd-funding as a fraudulent sorce of income. I hope that it is genuine, but more information is needed to be confident that it is genuine.
Crowd-funding isn’t just happening for men with Prostate Cancer who are choosing to go the private route.
I have a seriously ill friend who is having to crowd fund so that she can get an MRI & a PET scan done of her brain because she has a mass in her brain, & despite the fact that she is on a disability pension, she has to pay almost $1000 upfront, & if she’s lucky, may get about $400 of that back from Medicare…. to pay for these scans, she will have to go without medications, without food, & delay getting new medical equipment she needs to survive day to day….
What kind of country are we living in when we treat our own citizens like this? People who have done nothing wrong to get their illness (not a smoker, a drinker, a drug addict) can’t get any help without selling all their possessions & then begging the general community for money to help them pay for tests, treatments, etc???
“First Do No Harm”……it seems that doctors oath is being left out of the medical community a lot these days….
I was not aware; I wonder if it is also in use for joint replacements and cataract surgery. I see so many of my elderly patients in misery waiting and waiting just for an appointment let alone the surgery in the public system. The two-tiered system already exists.
I wonder what medicine is coming to when out of pocket costs are becoming so high and commonplace. A colleague was recently out of pocket, at “mates rates” for $7000 just for surgeon. Don’t know what assistant, anaesthetist etc charged. Am aware of a member of public whose costs (in private system) where complications resulted in a 4 week stay in hospital were over $50,000.
If robotic prostate cancer surgery is available in public hospitals and a 90 day wait is feasible for most patients why isn’t this widely known?
Busy farmers without much access to help are likely to chose private over public for certainty of surgery date and, hopefully, prompt return to physical work.
I had no idea this was happening. The contrast between the well-funded position re breast cancer is inescapable. Don’t men’s lives matter?