Thomas Sowell Has It Figured Out

I have wondered for a while when the American public is going to wake up to what's happening in our country with health care and how it will impact Proton Beam Therapy. PBT is more costly than other treatments, but with far fewer side effects. When we come to a place with health care where money is the prevailing factor, I'm afraid those who are trying to ram just any bill through Congress so the President isn't viewed as impotent, they will begin cutting for money's sake with little thought for care. Health care shouldn't be about what's best for Obama. It should be about what's best for the American people.

This article by Thomas Sowell is a real eye opener.

Have a good Wednesday.
Blessings,
Rick

Fifth Christmas Post Treatment

This was my fifth Christmas to celebrate since finishing up on my cancer treatment. Thanks to Proton Beam Therapy, I was able to celebrate knowing that I am cured of cancer and I didn't have to radically alter my life to do it.
I feel so sorry for men who choose options only on the recommendation of their doctors and refuse to do their own homework.

I received a very nice Christmas card from a family of someone who found my blog and needed hope for their father. One quote. "I believe you may have changed the entire course of his life and I am so grateful for your knidness."

Sometimes when I blog, I catch myself wondering if there is anyone out there. When that happens, I will remind myself of this card and know that I have a mission to do and need to just try to help and catch the blessing of it later down the road.

Have a good Monday.
Blessings,
Rick

Merry Christmas To All

I hope you are enjoying the blessings of Jesus' birth on this Christmas day.

Have a good Friday.
Blessings,
Rick

Thank God For Our Fighting Men and Women and Merry Christmas to Each Of Them.

Why Choose Treatment Abroad?

Spending six- to eight-weeks anywhere away from home can be taxing. Yet because there are so few Proton treatment facilties in North America, patients wanting Proton therapy almost invariably must travel somewhere far from home, and live for up to two months in rental accommodation, to receive treatment. So what sort of patient might find the Natioanl Cancer Center (NCC)in Seoul, South Korea an appealing destination option?

The most obvious appeal is cost. The fact that the NCC offers the world's lowest-cost proton treatment program for prostate cancer. That would make the NCC a good option for North American patients without health insurance. Or patients whose insurance won't pay for proton treatment. Or whose insurers refuse to authorize payment despite the treatment being an approved procedure. (Some insurers won't approve payment for PBT until other, cheaper treatments have been tried and failed.)

Another major attraction is immediate access to treatment. At the six proton radiation facilities in North America, patients often must wait three months or more to enter treatment -- if they are accepted at all. Demand exceeds treatment capacity. And some U.S. proton facilities severely restrict the number of prostate patients they accepted, in order to give priority to patients with cancers untreatable in other ways.

By contrast, access to treatment at the NCC is immediate. Once the NCC has the opportunity to examine a patient's medical records and confirm proton radiation is appropriate, treatment can begin as soon as a patient gets to Seoul and completes the patient enrollment and treatment planning process.

Immediate access to treatment could prove decisive for men diagnosed with very aggressive forms of prostate cancer, but which show no signs yet of having spread beyond the prostate.

I hope the information about NCC over the last several days has been helpful to you. Don't hesitate to contact them to seek more information here.

Have a good Wednesday.
Blessings,
Rick

The following is information about pre-departure procedures in order to take advantage of Proton Beam Therapy at the National Cancer Center in Seoul, South Korea via Patients With Passports.

To register for proton therapy treatment at the National Cancer Center, patients living outside South Korea should contact Patients With Passports at info@patientswithpassports.com, or by calling the toll-free telephone number +1 877-633-3591.
PwP will assign a personal case manager to carefully guide you through the treatment application process. The case manager will:
-- answer any questions you have about the NCC Proton Radiation Treatment Program
-- help gather and send to the NCC all the medical records necessary for the NCC to determine if proton therapy is appropriate
-- assist you in estimating the overall expense, by factoring in non-treatment costs for expenses like airfare, meals, domestic transportation, etc.
-- offer assistance with payment planning, including guidance in how to go about seeking payment authorization from private insurers or group healthcare plans
-- handle the treatment booking process, including scheduling of procedures to be complete over the first several days in Seoul, when the NCC must
conduct exams to certify a patient as fit for proton therapy, prepare an exact treatment plan, and make the necessary individualized equipment
(i.e. patient treatment pod, and proton beam aperture and compensator)
-- arrange accommodation
-- arrange airport pickup and a three-day orientation program upon arrival
-- assist patients in their pre-departure preparations

Tomorrow I’ll write a bit more about pre-departure information.
Have a good Tuesday.
Blessings,
Rick

About That Concierge Service?

The following is a short piece from information given out by Patients With Passports, which I have been writing about the last few days. I will focus on this group until Christmas anyway.
I hope it is beneficial to you.

An elaborate system has been created to look after the non-medical needs of patients arriving from abroad for proton radiation treatment at the National Cancer Center in Seoul, South Korea. The service provides thoughtful, personalized help every step of the way.
-- help gathering the medical records necessary for the NCC to determine whether proton therapy is an appropriate treatment for the patient
-- airport pick-up and drop-off
-- accommodation at up-market residential facility for the duration of treatment
-- three-day orientation upon arrival
-- help getting started with cultural, sporting, travel-oriented, or educational activities while in Seoul
-- attentive assistance throughout your stay from bilingual staff in dealing with non-medical matters

The concierge service is set up to look after foreign patients from the moment someone registers for proton therapy, to the day the patient departs Seoul for home. Throughout the process, foreign patients can count on receiving attentive, personalized help from bilingual staff.
Again their website.
Tomorrow I’ll cover some information about pre-departure preparation.

Have a good Monday.
Blessings,
Rick

I wrote yesterday a bit about Patients With Passports, an organization that helps Americans get Proton Beam Therapy at the National Cancer Center in Seoul, South Korea. I hope you had time to go to their website and look around. With what may be happening to our health care system in America, we may be learning about even more organizations who help people to get less expensive care overseas. The following will get you right to the English version page about Proton Beam Therapy.


I have friends in South Korea and they tell me that the cost of a CT scan is $200 and that a friend of theirs had a baby and the prenatal care up through the delivery only cost $800.

It’s been 27 years since our last baby, but I’m quite sure that it was much more than $800 even that long ago.

I hope you have a good weekend as we enter this Holy week.
The following link will guide you to the Englsih version.

Have a good weekend.
Blessings,
Rick

Medical Tourism?

With Obamacare on the horizon and the unknown ahead of us, medical tourism may be a fast growing industry in the near future.
One such company is Patients With Passports. They are based in Minnesota and help people travel to Seoul, South Korea to take advantage of less expensive treatment with Proton Beam Therapy at the National Cancer Center, www.ncc.re.kr.. Click on upper right corner of their home page for English.

Medical tourism is traveling to another country for healthcare. For decades, foreigners have traveled to the United States for medical treatment. Now it's Americans heading abroad for medical care, a response to the exorbitant cost of healthcare here. In 2006, an estimated half million Americans did so -- and that number is expected to soar over coming years.
Patients With Passports helps these so-called "medical refugees." They are an international medical care arranger. They help Americans decide the best place to go for treatment, given the person's current health, required treatment, budget, personal preferences and travel experience. And once a client has decided, they make all arrangements, for both medical treatment and travel. They make going abroad for healthcare safer, easy and inexpensive.
You may contact them at www.patientswithpassports.com.

More tomorrow.
Have a good Thursday.
Blessings,
Rick

Change of Focus Starting Today

Starting today I'll be making a shift in my focus about prostate cancer treatment. Up to this point I have been primarily writing about the different treatment options for prostate cancer.
However, an experience last month with a surgeon who is spouting lies about proton therapy has directed my attention to the fact that any mention about proton radiation therapy may be being squelched by most of the medical community in this area anyway.
This is wrong on every front. Consequently, I will focus primarily on proton therapy for treatment of not only prostate cancer, but the other 43 cancers that are treated with protons today.
I'll make my posts short so you don't have to spend alot of time each day reading them. I know we live in a busy world with email and facebook to keep up with.

Tomorrow I will begin writing about a group that I have just become familiar with that is helping individuals to take advantage of an opportunity to be treated with protons even with limited resources.
Have a good Wednesday.

Blessings,
Rick