re: Viewing scans long distance

I found a clinic in Mississippi that does cutting edge ablations on cancer patients with liver and lung lesions. The Dr. apparently was the first to do this on patients with mets to the lungs and to lung cancer patients. According to many things I've read online, this has been a very successful precedure.

I was excited so I gave them a call, asked some questions and made an appointment. Later I called back and asked to talk with the doctor. They put me on the line with the "medical director". He painted a dismal picture as far as Mark's chances of being a candidate. I asked if I couldn't just mail the CT scans there to have them evaluated. "No, the doctor really wants the patient there in person." I suppose if they can't read the scan they would need to do another. That is a mere $2400 expense. The appointment itself is $500 plus, not to mention the cost and inconvenience of traveling across the country.

This perplexed me so I called another clinic in Portland I had spoken with a few months ago that does a similar treatment. I asked what the chances are of the doctor evaluating the scans. "Of course he can do that!" How much would it cost" "Nothing!" I called the clinic in Mississippi to cancel the appointment and fedex-ed the scans to Portland. I just couldn't shake a suspcious feeling about the reluctance to look over the scan in advance.

Any thoughts on this from anyone?