Update on travel plans, insurance, surgery

I've been putting off updating.... hoping we were going to have some definite news. As things stand right now, we still do not have things worked out financially. The two local doctors have not come thru with the letters they said they would write confirming we were told it is inoperable here. It's been over a week and still no letters. The insurance case manager asked us to get statements, so she could present our case to the insurance doctors in an effort to get benefits paid as if it were in-network. We'll be contacting these local doctors again tomorrow.

We did learn this week that the estimated cost of the surgery is around $120,000. If the insurance only pays 60%, this will leave about $48,000 for us to pay. IF.... the insurance were to agree to pay as if it's in-network, I assume we would be responsible for whatever the insurance does not pay. We all know the insurance does not pay very much in most cases. So, we have no idea what our responsibility will be or if the hospital will accept payments. Website says not. We're trusting things will work out.

We've decided to drive up. It's about 12 hr trip, but just need to take a lot of "stuff" to be gone almost three weeks. We'll leave Sat. June 2nd. splitting the trip into two days. Earl is to check into the hospital some time Sunday.