- Everything in Platinum, plus:
Includes global search and verification of best treatment options- –
Selection of 5 optimal specialists to perform planned treatment - –
- Follow-up for 5 years
- Everything in Gold, plus:
Treatment expert search across regions and countries
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Videoconference at the start and after case completion.- –
- Comprehensive written report discussing options and context.
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- Hyperlinked references to primary research papers relevant for client’s situation
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- Follow-up for 3 years
- Interview with client
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Clinical case preparation - –
Confirmation of treatment plan with doctor - –
Treatment price negotiation - –
Follow-up videoconference
Surgeon’s Knowledge Directly Influences Treatment Success
“Experience is not everything. Knowledge is the most important thing. Some surgeons are very experienced but they do the operation in a wrong way. If you don’t know how to do it, it does not matter how many patients you operate on, because if you do it wrong every time, the results will not be good. So you have to find a well-educated surgeon, and preferably with a long experience. I think the knowledge is much more important than experience.
Swedish cancer surgeon (40 years of experience)
Knowledge and experience of surgeons differs widely for a given operation even within the same hospital, and certainly within a region or a country.
Learn as much as you can about the surgery. I strongly recommend second opinions. If there is consensus in the indications and the intended procedure among at least two, sometimes even three well-seasoned senior surgeons, it gives you confidence that you are making the right decision. And that is first and foremost.
– Boston spine surgeon
(40 years of experience)
Healthcare has no price or quality transparency. But an era of keeping patients in the dark about treatment options is ending.
The first thing is still education. It’s still convincing other doctors that this is worth doing. There are still huge gaps in knowledge amongst doctors, who still think, ‘Oh, my God! You’re going to die’ – and do nothing. People just don’t understand what you can now do, they have not progressed in 30 years. This is where the Internet is very important. People can look on the Internet and say, ‘Why can I get these results at that hospital, and my doctor in my hospital says that it’s not possible?’
– British cancer surgeon
(45 years of experience)
All doctors know that patients are notoriously weak at picking proper metrics of physician quality. Hence fancy designs of medical offices.
You have more information about a steam iron you want to buy than about your neurosurgeon. There is a lot of reasons for that. Assessing quality in most of surgery is doubly difficult as it would be in any other part of medicine. Mortality is mostly low and not a very good indicator of clinical outcomes in many surgical subspecialties.
– California brain tumor surgeon and clinical outcomes expert
- We dive into doctor’s research, published record of case series, methods of surgery, anatomical studies.
- We see who the doctor collaborates with, because quality and diversity of collaborators can signal certain skills.
- We probe with our global network of experts for feedback on methods and leaders for a given disease.
- We compare different sources of information and see how they relate to your specific situation.
I think well-trained surgeons can be found everywhere in the world. And surgeons have their own judgment, and that’s something that’s not constant. So if a patient with lung cancer presents to one surgeon, and then to a second surgeon, both of these surgeons might have different opinions whether the patient is a candidate for surgery. Being comfortable with your team, and considering a second, sometimes third opinion [is useful].
American thoracic cancer surgeon (30 years of experience)
