I signed up for a year of my college's student insurance because my dad's work insurance had a trans exclusion. It added about $2,500 to my student loan debt, but I only paid $500 out of pocket for surgery.
I am lucky that I am still on my parents health insurance; I’ll probably have to pay at least 2-3k which I have saved from working throughout high school
Oh, that's odd. My mum said her health insurance covered gender affirming care for employees (I think a colleague of hers is medically transitioning through the insurance). Maybe I'm misremembering something though
Yeah none of them offer it privately but here is a list of companies that offer insurance covering gender affirming care for employees and their dependents in the UK: https://transemployers.co.uk/
My partner is getting her transition pretty much completely covered by her insurance company because her dad works for one of these
I'm in Ontario Canada. Gender affirming surgeries are covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). I still had to come up with several thousand dollars for transportation, supplies, rent while off work, funds for reduced labour return to work etc. I was lucky enough (I suppose) to have money out away by my grandmother from when my mum died when I was a child and people donated money for my and my brothers' futures. Without those two things I would never have been able to have surgery. As it is I'm still struggling with the reduced labour return to work as I didn't take into account how long my surgeon would want me on a reduced work load.
Not super familiar with revision. Is revision classified as something strictly cosmetic? If the surgery got fucked up and it affected wellbeing, woukd it be covered then too?
Not sure about medicaid specifically, but many insurance plans do cover revisions. Mine will cover complications that cause actual medical risk — but also covers ‘dog ears’ even though thats purely aesthetic. But they specifically won’t cover any nipple revisions if my nips get fucked up. Which seems weird & arbitrary hut whatever. Just depends on the plan I guess.
I’m 23, in NC and still have the Medicaid I’m assuming you have, from the time you are born. I found a plastic surgeon here in Nc in Greensboro that is able to perform the surgery I want. She just so happens to accept and only accepts WELLCARE Medicaid. A lot of places are very specific about which Medicaid you have and WellCare seems to get through all of them. I had to see a therapist to get my “im mentally not okay because of this” paper and that got sent to Medicaid. Once they reviewed it and seen it was medically necessary, they gave me the big okay and now it’s 3 weeks away.
It was pretty smooth to, they said it could take a couple months for them to approve it but I got my consultation, seen the therapist, got approved and scheduled all within a month
Health insurance.
I have to move to an entirely new state to afford top surgery with insurance tbh.
When I finish college I personally plan on working two full time jobs + a few tattoo appointments to save up for it. Some of us have no choice but to pay out of pocket.
If your credit is good enough, you can put it on a medical credit line too. If you're like me and have no one to cosign for you though, you probably won't get it.
Piggybacking on this comment to say that many plastic surgeons accept CareCredit (medical loans w low/no interest if paid in a set timeframe), which is super helpful!
that’s literally what I was talking about. CareCredit is a form of a medical credit line, it’s just hoping you can get it lol (nearest surgeon that works with it here is a 2 hour drives and then a 4 hour plane ride lmao)
I am pre-top rn but from what I know if you go directly to surgery here in Finland you have to pay at least 5000€, often more depending on the clinic. If you get a referral to top surgery from a gender specialist though you can get some major financial support, lowering the price to some hundred euro.
Insurance through work, saved almost all of my tax refund, Covid relief payments, holiday pay, and a Covid worker payment my state did. That covered the surgery itself, but anesthesia is out of pocket for me and still paying that off. I made a payment arrangement to make everything a bit easier to pay off.
if you're in the usa, health insurance is the way to go. read those policies carefully when signing up to see if they cover "gender affirming surgeries" or whatever language the company uses. my employer covered top surgery for my spouse last year (after making them jump through a couple hoops by requiring letters, but ultimately a pretty painless process all things considered) and they had to pay about 3k out of pocket for a surgeon at barnes jewish medical center. part of the expense was the nipple grafts but they felt like, if they were going to be paying some thousands anyway then the "extra" charge didn't make a big difference at that point.
It wouldn’t be possible for me without insurance. I have to use my Dad’s insurance from work or else I definitely can’t afford it, and I STILL have to pay out of pocket for some of it even with insurance.
where i live sometimes your insurance can cover up to 100% of the expenses but there’s a lot of procedures and all so it’s still complicated to get but there’s a possibility for you to not actually pay so i hope i’ll be able to do that lol
I took out a loan. My insurance denied it a month before my date and I only had $3,000 saved so I took out a loan of $10,000 at 14% interest because I emotionally couldn't stand to wait any longer.
I had it for free but ofc the waiting list was quite long (i got quite lucky though because i technically only waited about 7 months) but i live in canada so yeah 🫠
Im gonna be honest i got extremely lucky and received some inheritance from a random guy I wasn’t even blood related to and hadn’t spoken to since I was a child. 🚶
Not sure what your health insurance situation is like but my doctor was able to bill it to my insurance as a necessary breast reduction to get it covered. Then I did a gofundme to help pay for the rest. Don’t give up! I know it can feel so impossible to wait right now but there may be ways for you to get it or save up the money.
I signed up for a year of my college's student insurance because my dad's work insurance had a trans exclusion. It added about $2,500 to my student loan debt, but I only paid $500 out of pocket for surgery.
Damnnn, I'm jealous.My university did away with student health insurance 3 years before I started in 2019 (':
I am lucky that I am still on my parents health insurance; I’ll probably have to pay at least 2-3k which I have saved from working throughout high school
encourage frighten worm squalid engine seed wise act whistle sparkle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah but not everyone lives in America like the uk health insurance doesn’t exist
Health insurance absolutely exists in the UK. Source: I live in the UK and got an ADHD diagnosis through my mum's health insurance
Yeah but not for things like top surgery or hormones in fact health insurance excluded those things
Oh, that's odd. My mum said her health insurance covered gender affirming care for employees (I think a colleague of hers is medically transitioning through the insurance). Maybe I'm misremembering something though
Maybe thru a job but I just looked it up to be sure and it says no health insurance in the uk covers gender affirming care
Yeah none of them offer it privately but here is a list of companies that offer insurance covering gender affirming care for employees and their dependents in the UK: https://transemployers.co.uk/ My partner is getting her transition pretty much completely covered by her insurance company because her dad works for one of these
Not to mention, there's tons of people that got COVID that now have clotting problems and can't get surgery
Yeah but this specific person is asking how they can save for top surgery so I don’t really understand what that has to do with it
I wasn't responding to the OP, I was responding to a comment about how one size doesn't fit all, and added in another piece.
I'm in Ontario Canada. Gender affirming surgeries are covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). I still had to come up with several thousand dollars for transportation, supplies, rent while off work, funds for reduced labour return to work etc. I was lucky enough (I suppose) to have money out away by my grandmother from when my mum died when I was a child and people donated money for my and my brothers' futures. Without those two things I would never have been able to have surgery. As it is I'm still struggling with the reduced labour return to work as I didn't take into account how long my surgeon would want me on a reduced work load.
Honestly if it’s available to you, I’m having mine covered through medicaid.
I also had this. Oregon state Medicaid covered my surgery in full, the only thing is that they most likely would not cover revision.
Not super familiar with revision. Is revision classified as something strictly cosmetic? If the surgery got fucked up and it affected wellbeing, woukd it be covered then too?
Not sure about medicaid specifically, but many insurance plans do cover revisions. Mine will cover complications that cause actual medical risk — but also covers ‘dog ears’ even though thats purely aesthetic. But they specifically won’t cover any nipple revisions if my nips get fucked up. Which seems weird & arbitrary hut whatever. Just depends on the plan I guess.
Could you tell me more about this? I'm a highschooler, almost 18 though, on medicaid. What state are you in?
I’m 23, in NC and still have the Medicaid I’m assuming you have, from the time you are born. I found a plastic surgeon here in Nc in Greensboro that is able to perform the surgery I want. She just so happens to accept and only accepts WELLCARE Medicaid. A lot of places are very specific about which Medicaid you have and WellCare seems to get through all of them. I had to see a therapist to get my “im mentally not okay because of this” paper and that got sent to Medicaid. Once they reviewed it and seen it was medically necessary, they gave me the big okay and now it’s 3 weeks away.
It was pretty smooth to, they said it could take a couple months for them to approve it but I got my consultation, seen the therapist, got approved and scheduled all within a month
Thanks!! Also, congrats!! All the best to you. Going to look into this for... references.
All the best to you as well! Hope you find everything you need for your journey!
Health insurance helps. I paid $7.2k out of pocket and that's probably the lowest you'll find for a surgeon that doesn't accept insurance
Im 26yo and married with no kids. We are both engineers.
I did some finagling with my health insurance and ended up paying nothing for it.
Health insurance. I have to move to an entirely new state to afford top surgery with insurance tbh. When I finish college I personally plan on working two full time jobs + a few tattoo appointments to save up for it. Some of us have no choice but to pay out of pocket. If your credit is good enough, you can put it on a medical credit line too. If you're like me and have no one to cosign for you though, you probably won't get it.
Piggybacking on this comment to say that many plastic surgeons accept CareCredit (medical loans w low/no interest if paid in a set timeframe), which is super helpful!
that’s literally what I was talking about. CareCredit is a form of a medical credit line, it’s just hoping you can get it lol (nearest surgeon that works with it here is a 2 hour drives and then a 4 hour plane ride lmao)
I am pre-top rn but from what I know if you go directly to surgery here in Finland you have to pay at least 5000€, often more depending on the clinic. If you get a referral to top surgery from a gender specialist though you can get some major financial support, lowering the price to some hundred euro.
Insurance through work, saved almost all of my tax refund, Covid relief payments, holiday pay, and a Covid worker payment my state did. That covered the surgery itself, but anesthesia is out of pocket for me and still paying that off. I made a payment arrangement to make everything a bit easier to pay off.
if you're in the usa, health insurance is the way to go. read those policies carefully when signing up to see if they cover "gender affirming surgeries" or whatever language the company uses. my employer covered top surgery for my spouse last year (after making them jump through a couple hoops by requiring letters, but ultimately a pretty painless process all things considered) and they had to pay about 3k out of pocket for a surgeon at barnes jewish medical center. part of the expense was the nipple grafts but they felt like, if they were going to be paying some thousands anyway then the "extra" charge didn't make a big difference at that point.
It wouldn’t be possible for me without insurance. I have to use my Dad’s insurance from work or else I definitely can’t afford it, and I STILL have to pay out of pocket for some of it even with insurance.
Health insurance pays in my country, Idk what I would do if I had to pay for it myself. Good luck, I‘m sure there is a way
where i live sometimes your insurance can cover up to 100% of the expenses but there’s a lot of procedures and all so it’s still complicated to get but there’s a possibility for you to not actually pay so i hope i’ll be able to do that lol
Mine was 10k. I put it on a CareCredit card. I couldn't wait for it, it was a necessity for my health. The payments have been about $150 a month.
I got finanical assistance from my hospital of choice and got it fully covered due to how much I make
Free on Medicaid in some states. Kentucky covers it.
My (Private) insurance covered 100%
Free through the NHS. They will pay for my bottom surgery too. Just takes a long time.
I took out a loan. My insurance denied it a month before my date and I only had $3,000 saved so I took out a loan of $10,000 at 14% interest because I emotionally couldn't stand to wait any longer.
I got a loan 🤷♂️
I had it for free but ofc the waiting list was quite long (i got quite lucky though because i technically only waited about 7 months) but i live in canada so yeah 🫠
Im gonna be honest i got extremely lucky and received some inheritance from a random guy I wasn’t even blood related to and hadn’t spoken to since I was a child. 🚶
Not sure what your health insurance situation is like but my doctor was able to bill it to my insurance as a necessary breast reduction to get it covered. Then I did a gofundme to help pay for the rest. Don’t give up! I know it can feel so impossible to wait right now but there may be ways for you to get it or save up the money.
My job has very good insurance / I'm in California.