Just because his family is wealthy does not mean that his mother was financially supported for her healthcare. It's quite possible that the family patriarch held the purse strings and deemed that health insurance was the line for their financial support.
I'm in a similar situation with a family member and we are spending around 4-5k/month in a variety of non-allopathic strategies for this family member's health care. However, the family patriarch has drawn the line where his financial support is in providing housing, so the 4-5k is picked up by other family members.
You can be a literal millionaire and bled dry by mounting health insurance claim denials. There is little anyone can do to protect themselves from this outcome, save for not getting sick or becoming a billionaire. The health system in the US is insanely broken.
Non-Allopathic in my case means we’re not dealing with the traditional US medical system. We’re not engaged in homeopathy (microdosing random molecules) at all.
Perhaps what we are doing is still considered allopathic (most strategies are informed with research a la pubmed), with an osteopathic approach (whole body).
The difference here is that we’re able to eschew traditional means (dr appointment, lab test, drug rx feedback loop) of engaging with the medical system, while engaging with non-traditional health related businesses for our own care.
For example, we’re able to validate whether genetic disorders are at play by having sequenced full DNA and matching them against known genetic mutations.
We will order our own blood tests and pay out of pocket to quest, to drive decision making. Same thing a regular doctor would do, but in a far more expedited timeline. It’s a 1-2 day process test a vit D levels to determine and adjust dosing. An average doctor might be 3 weeks out for a 15 minute appointment to write that vit D lab script, then another week out from reviewing and writing the Rx for D.
4-5k a month is the cost of what someone with profound chronic illness ends up paying if they want to do their own R&D, deal with things on their own, in a manner that ensures timeliness and the best care possible. It’s a myth that access to the brightest minds (a la an institution like Mayo Clinic equals the best care, btw)
The money is merely the average in which to access the latest tests, as quickly as possible, medical equipment normally inaccessible to the general public and test and treatment options an engaged and highly trained MD that practices something such as precision medicine might suggest at the height of their careers’ charging power.
It also helps that the patriarch is a retired MD and can let us engage with the system out of band by writing scripts for medications that would be unavailable to the average public.
When lives and suffering are on the line, and we’re in these highly compensated roles, 4-5k/month is a privilege to spend for loved ones. Much of it may be lit on fire, so to speak, in personal r&d efforts, but each of them yields a win that gets us closer to a healthy baseline.
