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If you have decided
that our innovative cancer treatment may be a good option for you, getting started is easy. You may want to schedule a full initial consultation or a preliminary conference. Initial consultation If you feel sure that you want to pursue treatment here, you'll want to schedule a consultation visit as a new patient. This is a comprehensive visit. We allot at least an hour and a half for your visit so that we can spend the time necessary to make sure you receive detailed personal attention. No one is in a hurry here when your health is on the line. At that visit we'll review your medical history and any records you can provide for us, perform a physical exam relevant to your cancer, evaluate your eligibility for treatment, and begin talking with you about exactly what will be involved. We'll also make arrangements to obtain baseline laboratory studies (from a blood sample which can be drawn here or at any lab of your choosing) which are critically important to watch for any side effects of treatment once you start. If we're all in agreement that you are a reasonable candidate for treatment here, we'll arrange the next appointment to go over all those details and begin the dosing of the first of the medicines we'll be using. You'll be guided every step of the way and we'll stay in touch with your other doctors, too. Before your consultation visit, several things will be helpful. First, although you don't need approval from anyone to consult with us, it's a very good idea to inform your primary oncologist and any other doctors whom you see regularly about your upcoming visit here. We'll be staying in touch with them regularly and you'll have better coordination of your health care if they're "in the loop" right from the start. Next, you'll need to bring with you a very precise listing of every medication and every other supplement or other remedy that you take. We'll check for any possible conflicts or interactions. Your pharmacist may be able to help in providing a list for you. Records are especially helpful when you come. If you have any recent notes or summaries of the previous events in your cancer care those will help us do a better job for you. If nothing else, you might even sit down and type out a summary of what has happened since your cancer was diagnosed in a page or less. We can fill in more detail as we talk with you in person. Previous lab results can be helpful too. And finally, if there are any imaging studies (CT or PET scans, etc) which demonstrate the extent of your cancer we'd like to be able to review those and have copies of the interpretation reports which go with them. You should plan to provide a copy of certain portions of your records to be kept in our files. Our office staff can help you with these details when scheduling your appointments. We want to take really good care of you, and you can help us do that. Preliminary conference If you are seriously interested in our treatment but you're not fully sure it's the right choice for you, you may wish to schedule a preliminary conference instead of a full consultation. We offer this very low cost opportunity because we believe it can be helpful to many prospective patients. When you schedule this appointment, we don't register you in as a patient yet and we don't have to have all your records. We allot a half hour for detailed discussion and for you to simply ask us anything you'd like about our work and whether it might be suitable for you. It's an efficient and economical way for you to feel sure about whether you should proceed or not. We charge only $85 for this service, and if you decide to schedule a full consultation we'll apply a $30 credit toward that visit. If the program isn't right for you, you've saved time and resources. Please note that a preliminary conference is the only service for which we must ask payment to be made at the time of your visit. |
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