liver transplant - Liver & Pancreas Disorders Message Board

iluvwv · 02-20-2008, 03:12 PM

How is anyone suppose to afford a liver transplant ?!? Do they take payments? I was just told it was around $500,000 total from transplant through first year.

feelbad · 02-21-2008, 09:09 AM

it is rather sick isn't it?we wentthru this nightmare with our then 12 year old son back in 99-2000.quite frankly,the amount you mentioned really sounds rather low,just based on what my sons plain just hospital bill was back in 2000?just for the freaking hosp stay,OR time procedures,meds and the cadaver liver and getting it to the hosp(the liver getting there,and harvest actually was over 30,000 in and of itself)all came to about 397 grand.this did not include all the many different teams of docs that all worked on my son.depending upon your actual situation,there are other options you can try.qualifying for SSI,is one,but really speaking with a social worker at the transplant hosp would really be your best bet.there are ways of doing things that they are there to help you with.if you are being considered for possible transplant at a particular hosp,a social worker should automatically be assigned to you just to help you out with all of this type of stuff.ours was really amazing.i would just contact the transplant center at the hosp where you are going to be heading to for transplant,they can help you.do you actually have any type of health ins?marcia

iluvwv · 02-21-2008, 04:25 PM

the transplant is for my husband. he has been turned down for ssi and ssd. it is at the appeal office now. we filed for this in 2005 and have not received a penny from no one. they say i make too much money to get ssi and denied the ssd. i have insurance and they pay 80 percent but 20 percent of that much money is a lot and we don't have it. if i didn't work we could get all kinds of help. this is ridiculous. we have only been to the clinic for one appt and have 2 more before they will let us know if he is on the list. the clinic is 4 hours away and i'm not even sure our vehicle will make it again. the social worker said there wasn't much they could do unless i made less than 1000 month and i don't. but they never told me how much it was going to cost. do these transplant clinics take payments? geeze, maybe i should quit work? I swear if i hadn't already been there 30 years i would be gone!