Bobert,

You are, I hope, repeating the fecal occult blood (hemooccult) test at home, aren't you? Although a single negative test is re-assuring, I always had my family practice patients do a series of three. If your doctor hasn't given them to you already, you might ask for hemoccult cards to do at home. You don't have to take the sample digitally, you know.

Sinsull's information applies particularly to diverticulitis, an infection of one of those little pockets she mentions. As she also says, there are other conditions that have similar symptoms. Here is some info. on diverticulitis from a well-respected source: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/173388-treatment

Dani,

I'm in Ohio. You are correct that BEFORE you get insurance you are obligated to reveal any PRE-EXISTING condition. Unless I am severly misunderstanding something, Bobert already HAS insurance. Conditions that do not exist until AFTER one obtains insurance are not PRE-existing conditions.

There is no general law or rule that requires a patient or a doctor to turn over information to an insurance company. There is a requirement that information be turned over IF the insurance company is paying the bill. If the insurance company is NOT paying the bill there is, in general, no reason to inform them of anything. In fact, it is ILLEGAL to inform them without the patient's permission and it is IMPOSSIBLE to inform them if the doctor doesn't know the patient's provider - and the doctor won't know unless the patient provides that information.

It is, of course, possible that Bobert signed some type of agreement to tell the insurance company everything. I haven't seen his particular contract. My point is that, unless he AGREED to tell them everything, he doesn't NEED to tell them everything.

If a patient pays cash, I certainly don't call his insurance provider, even if I know it. I have never seen or heard of any doctor requiring patients to agree that medical information can be released to an insurance company that is not paying the bill. I can't imagine what the purpose of such an agreement would be. One of the reasons doctors offer cash discounts is because, if the patient pays cash, we DON'T have to fool with the insurance company.

Kent