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I'm jumping around from specialists trying to figure out what's wrong and what happened and how to fix it.

Something to keep in mind is that specialists are each looking at your medical issues through their particular lense. If you are not seeing results based on a variety of specialists you may need to look at more holistic providers (e.g. functional medicine, acupuncture, etc.)

I need all the hacks for choosing the cheapest providers and being frugal when visiting doctors ASAP. I have insurance (PPO).

PPO plans are generally the best plans for affordability of ongoing care (higher rates of coinsurance, potentially lower deductibles and copays). If you look for providers in the plan's network, then I don't think you are going to get any lower than that. The individual above who referenced the "No Surprises Act" is also a good recommendation when you do call so that you can have an idea of what your rate of coinsurance will be after a deductible.

Cash-pay providers are also not a bad option. These tend to be providers who got fed up with the insurance system and the need to see 4x the volume of patients to make the same amount of money, and where insurance claim reps (not doctors) were the ones deciding what tests or procedures get approved or denied. Their move to cash pay allows them to spend considerably more time with you directly to work through what could be causing the problem(s).

Since these individuals would be considered "out of network", ask them if they can provide you with a superbill that you can submit to your insurance for partial reimbursement. You will need to check with your insurance to see how they reimburse each CPT code but you generally can get some money back.

If the medical issue(s) you are experiencing are so debilitating that you cannot work, the additional cost may be worth it so that you a) feel better and b) can continue working.

A few other websites to consider based on what a provider advises:

1. Ulta labs - purchase testing directly at a discount.
2. MDSave - purchase scans or procedures at a known cost (generally a discount)

If you end up needing medication, check out www.costplusdrugs.com Mark Cuban basically buys generic drugs at wholesale prices, marks them up 15%, and sells them, which often ends up costing a whole lot less than whatever your insurance company has negotiated with a pharmacy.

If you end up needing some real specialty drug, it might not help, but some things are expensive for no apparent reason.

Also, as much as I hate to recommend it, sometimes it's worth taking your huge list of symptoms, what's been tried, what helped, what hasn't helped, etc., and feeding them into your favorite LLM. Your doctors read a ton of books in medical school, but they haven't read every forum where people with your idiosyncratic set of symptoms has ever talked about it online like LLMs have. Sometimes it'll turn things up that your doctor would never have thought about on their own.

It's equally likely to make things up out of whole cloth, but if you insist on citations and look up the relevant terms in something like Google Scholar and read the relevant articles, you can then send the actual article(s) to your doctor to review, rather than just coming in armed with "ChatGPT told me I might have eastern equine encephalitis" or something!

None of your doctors care as much about your health as you do. You're one of hundreds of patients they'll see, and they all expect to have a few they couldn't help. But you? You have to live with this day-in and day-out, especially if they can't help, so it's mostly up to you to take charge of your own care to the extent possible.

If you have a partner/family member/friend who can help, bring them along for the ride, because nothing is mentally/emotionally/physically exhausting quite like mysterious medical problems, and it helps to have someone who isn't suffering the symptoms to keep a clear head and go to bat for you when you're at your weakest.

Good luck!

Do you have a primary care doctor who is helping you navigate the specialists? I ask because I know someone who was in a similar situation jumping around to different specialists and the whole process became easier when he handed over guidance of everything to his main doctor. This doctor helped find the right people who were in network and advised him who to talk with next. I hope you find resolution and feel better soon!

Under the "no surprises act" you have the right to receive a"good faith estimate" from your providers. Make sure to remind them of this. They shouldn't be able to just bill you after the fact without you knowing the cost.

No idea where you are/what plan you have, but some plans have what they call "nurse navigators" whose job is to help you find the cheapest place to get some particular procedure done. Your primary care or specialist doc says, "I need you to have X test (MRI, blood draw, whatever). I'd refer you to (whatever big hospital I'm affiliated with)."

You call the nurse navigator and say, "My doc needs me to have X test and is referring me to Y hospital. Can we do better than that?" Then the nurse navigator looks at the insurance company's records and compares what the procedure costs at different providers within your network, based on what other people with your plan have paid for it, and even handles getting the updated referral and moving everything over.

At my insurance company, it's literally called the "Reduce My Costs" hotline. Last year it saved me thousands of dollars trying to figure things out. If your insurance company has one, this can be a Godsend!

Use your health insurance website or app to find/filter in network healthcare providers (and note both provider and location need to be in network - some doctors work in multiple locations and not all are in the same network. It may also give you estimated costs based on specific medical services. Be sure to check the database for your specific health plan and not just insurer, as networks differ by plan, not just insurer, and verify in network for specific plan with the provider's office when scheduling appointment. To increase confidence, check with their billing office, rather than just reception or their website.