[greenglass]

HMO so yes, costs are a factor. But it was a small cost relative to repeated doctor visits, hospital costs, etc… MRI for massive HMO are not $5000 due to economies of scale. The dr in this case was angry because the MRI revealed brain tumors which needed to be monitored.

[n8henrie]

$5k would be the estimated outside-of-insurance cost to you, to avoid spending hours of the MD trying to justify the study with the insurance.

Meningiomas by chance?

Has the monitoring improved your health? I'm not sure whether I would be more or less troubled if I had symptoms with an unclear cause vs a possible cause but unclear management plan. I suppose this will be highly variable.