An explanation of benefits form arrived today from my insurance. It included the medical center’s fees for my medical oncology visit on 1/24. The total charges? $15,725, discounted to $8,628 via the contract with my insurance. This does not include the physician’s office charges. This is the medical center fee. I looked at the itemized list of services. The line, “Drugs—$14,365.00” caught my eye right away. The line above that read, “chemotherapy”.

Since I have not gotten chemotherapy, I assumed that someone else’s claim had been submitted with my name on it. Then I thought, “Wow, it could be the Lupron injection I get every three months.”

Being the Google Queen that I am, I searched “Lupron injection cost.” It looked like it costs several thousand dollars when used for other purposes. Even though the examples I saw were not for three month lupron to treat breast cancer, I thought the $15K was too high to be for the Lupron.

I called the medical center as well as my doctor’s office.

Lupron makes some extremely expensive hot flashes. I will be sure to put on a pair of fancier underwear on the day of my next injection.

I can imagine scenarios where it would truly cost that much money but wow, that’s a lot. What do people who don’t have insurance do? I already know what they do. They get substandard treatment and that’s just sad.