3 ms·
curious: are you based in the US? Would it not be covered by insurance? $400/shot is a lot for Ketamine.
by foobaw 9y ago
curious: are you based in the US? Would it not be covered by insurance? $400/shot is a lot for Ketamine.
- nylonstrung 9y agoInsurance absolutely does not cover ketamine therapy in the US
- blobwalker 9y ago$400 is a fairly typical price. The ketamine itself is cheap, but operating a clinic doing off-label infusions that take an hour or two each is expensive. And nope... no insurance in the US that I know of covers it.
- refurb 9y agoKetamine is a generic drug and dirt cheap. I just checked and it's under $10 for a vial with enough to use in surgery, not even this setting. The $400 must be the clinic charge. I'm not sure what administration looks like, but a regular doctor's visit is $100-$150 and if the patient needs to stay for a longer period of time until it's safe to release them, $400 doesn't seem that far off of what you'd expect.
- Praitor 9y agoThat's on the low end. I've looked into it and seen prices on the order of $1000-1500 per treatment. If you filter those out, many metro areas simply have no provider that charges what would seem to be a justifiable price. Abusive pricing is a big problem for this product it seems. Several advocacy sites that I saw that maintain provider lists make note of this.
- nefitty 9y agoIs it abusive pricing or are they covering for potential legal issues, etc? It would be great to hear from a clinician with first-hand experience.
- jessaustin 9y agoIs it abusive pricing... Medical clinic in USA? Signs point to "yes".
- rincebrain 9y agoMost of the expense is that it's an IV, so you need a trained nurse to administer and oversee you having it in and out; at least, that's what the doctor who ran the practice I did this at said, and given the cost of ketamine, it made sense.
- namlem 9y agoIt's considered off label use, so insurance won't pay for it.