Even Healthcare Professionals are Patients Sometimes

Meet Scott

“I know the rising costs of healthcare, especially in imaging, because the equipment is so bloomin’ expensive. I try to spread the word about MDsave, because I know from my own personal experience. I just have a job and work for a living like everybody else, and it saved me $1,100 to use  it.”

-Scott Y., Oklahoma, on working with MDsave

I’m a 56 year old weekend warrior, I’m a former marathon runner and triathlete, and because of my bad knee that needs to be replaced, I’ve been sidelined from the running. I’m currently an avid road cyclist and mountain biker. I travel all over the country mountain biking. That’s me in a nutshell: I was an athlete growing up , played football through High School and a little bit in college, too. I’ve been active most of my life, and I’ve always been kind of a cardio junkie with the running. I love to run. Obviously, if you don’t love to run, you don’t run marathons!

I’ve been a nuclear medicine technologist for over 30 years and I’ve been specialized in cardiology for about the last 20, so that’s my professional gig.

What made you stop running marathons?

I started having some knee trouble. When I went in to see the doctor, my orthopedic surgeon who’s also a friend of mine, they scoped my right knee and said, “You need to quit running.”

I decided I wasn’t going to let the doc tell me I couldn’t run, I’d have to figure that out for myself. About six months after my surgery, I went out and ran on New Year’s Day, 2016. I told myself  I’m either going to run ten feet or a mile. You know, I made it a mile, and it felt pretty good. So, I get back up to about four or five miles after three months, and I’m starting to have some really severe pain in my right knee, the one that he said was messed up. I was driving home from work and I had tears running down my face because of the pain. So I thought, “Oh my gosh, I’ve gotta go in.”

I went in to see him [the orthopedic surgeon] and he said, “You’ve been running, haven’t you?”

And I said, “Yep.”

And he said, “I told you…I told you. Well, you’ve got to go get that knee replaced now.”

How did you find MDsave?

My orthopedic surgeon sent me to get an MRI. I called over and they said, “Okay, we’ve got you scheduled next week. It’s going to be $1,700 and your out-of-pocket cost is going to be $1,500. We don’t expect you to pay the whole $1,500 at once, but bring at least half of it and we’ll work with you for a couple of months on the other half.”

I thought, “Wait a minute, here, that’s a lot of money.” So I said to go ahead and put me down tentatively – bought myself a spot. Then I went back to our office and I was bellyaching to the crew about how I was going to have to pay $1,500 for an MRI on my knee. The doctor was coming by, and I said, “Hey, I need to get this MRI on my knee,” and he said, “Look up MDsave, and do that.”

So I looked it up. It gave me all these options to pick from, and I thought they were all really good prices. Here’s a brand new, state-of-the-art MRI scanner that’s just been recently installed in the city at one of the outpatient centers. It was going to be $467 – including the read [the radiologist’s interpretation of the scan] – and I was like, that’s pretty crazy!

What was it like working with MDsave?

P.O.C. – Piece of cake. All I had to do was go ahead and purchase it, print off the voucher and take it over there. I couldn’t believe it.

Now that you have your MRI done, when are you getting your knee replaced?

Actually, I had a knee replacement scheduled for October 3, but last July, we were in Destin, Florida, for our annual family vacation and my wife had emergency gallbladder surgery. We were in the hospital for three days while everybody else was on the beach. So, you know, the surprise out-of-network cost ate up my health savings account for this year so I wasn’t able to get my knee done. I’m going to wait until next year.

Will you be running again when you get your new knee?

Well, the orthopedic surgeon’s staff said no, but I have a son and a daughter who are both RNs and one of them has worked in orthopedics. They said that they have a lot of people who come back after knee replacements and continue to run, so I’m hoping I’ll be one of those people.

I love running, and I feel good when I’m doing it. I love to ride my bike, but it’s not the same as pounding the trail or the pavement, you know?