My insurance sucks. I've just been denied coverage for:
- Therapy (I appealed that)
- Dental work (out of network even though they "take my insurance")
- Planned Parenthood gender affirming care meeting
Furthermore, my doctor's appointment with Doctor's on Demand was cancelled with no explanation (I was going to go with a primary care physician to ask some questions about HRT).
United Healthcare sucks and I need help. I've heard of DIY HRT but it sounds sketchy to me. I'm willing to get there, but I'd like to exhaust all possibilities before I go down that path. I picked Planned Parenthood because they seem like a safe space. My current primary care physician is sort of conservative coded. He made some comments at our last appointment that made me feel like HRT would be hard to acquire under his care or - in the very least - awkward.
I've looked at Plume and FolxHealth, which say they take my insurance, but I'm dubious. I feel like it'll be a bait and switch. They'll take my insurance, but I won't actually be covered and I'll end up paying an arm and a leg for boobs.
Anyone else have United Healthcare and have navigated HRT. I pay a decent amount for medical coverage under a PPO (PPOs tend to have larger networks). I would have thought HRT was easy to acquire since it's - essentially - a cheap medicine. But I'm running into road blocks early on that are making it difficult to figure out what to do. Should I just go through a primary care physician? Just make another appointment with Doctors on Demand? Can I just jump to FolxHealth or Plume? Is requesting Gender Affirming Care via Planned Parenthood the wrong way to go about this?
I hate insurance.
Are you comfortable describing where you source your Estradiol Enanthate and anti-androgens? I am looking at Open Gate Labs since they ship from the US and I live in the US. But I can't find any sources that are selling Bicalutamide. Each seller is out of stock or saying they aren't shipping due to the Trump tariffs. I don't really want to go on Spiro since they say it's weaker and then the side effects of Cyproterone acetate scare the heck out of me (e.g., benign brain tumors).
I would just do monotherapy, tbh - I don't think it's uncommon for DIY folks to do monotherapy (probably for this reason, anti-androgens are probably harder to get on the grey & black markets), and while I started with bica at first, I switched to monotherapy when bica was useless for biochemical dysphoria / mood impacts of T. I needed the T to be suppressed, and sufficient E was the solution to that.
Also, I don't do DIY, so I can't help you with sourcing - but I bet that Matrix room would have thoughts ๐
Thanks for your help! I ended up picking monotherapy and going on the matrix subreddit to double check my plans for DIY HRT.
sounds like a solid plan, I can't wait to hear how it goes ๐
Let me know if you end up with any questions, feel free to ping me on Matrix (
@dandelion:chat.blahaj.zone
) or DM me here on Lemmy!