I wonder if someone can tell me the best way to get a record of the staging of your breast cancer. Having spent hours filling in details of my 2 separate occurrences and photocopying all the discharge letters and reports that I have copies of, I have been asked to provide documentation for the stage of the second cancer, not just the grade, in order to be included in an annuity my husband may purchase. I am pretty sure that a statement of the stage is not included in anything that I have, or I would have filled in that information and included the photocopy.
I took the letter which asked for documentation of the staqe to my GP’s surgery, where I was told they could get this for me. But then I got a phone call from the surgery saying that they needed a solicitor’s letter for a ‘health report’, maybe a ‘full health report’ and that the report would cost £95.
I protested that only one piece of information was required, and said I would get back to the surgery later about this. (With life insurance, the better your life expectancy, the more insurance you get for a given sum, but with annuities it works the other way round and the better your life expectancy, the less you get for a given sum.)
So the questions are:
Should my GP have this information on record? If not, who should I ask?
Should I already have documentation which includes the stage?
Does it really cost £95 for a single piece of information of this kind?
I haven’t had to fill in annuity forms myself, but your hospital records will have the stage info on them, so perhaps you can ask your oncologist. I think it’s unlikely you would already have documentation regarding your stage. Might be easier to get your BCN to sign something for you if a signature is required. I know when I was buying a wig, and one company wanted a GP’s letter to prove I was having chemo for the VAT reduction, my BCN said that she could sign something for me if I needed it.
GPs are notorious for charging high amounts for any type of letter - but it varies a lot from surgery to surgery. Some only ask for £25, whereas I’ve known others ask for £120 to fill in a form (without needing to carry out any additional examination etc).
Good luck - hope you can get the evidence you need without paying £95 - but then, if you get a significant increase in your annuity, it will be worth it.
Thanks.
I forgot to say that my active treatment finished over a year ago. All the same, I’m surprised that this information isn’t sitting in my medical records.
Ah, that might be more complicated. My hospital archives the records off-site pretty quickly I think - so if your hospital is the same it might not be easy to retrieve your paper file. However, there should be a computer record as well?
I would try your surgeon or onc secretary and ask them if they will draft a letter & get it signed. Mine did everything I needed for my critical illness claim & I got the impression they are used to requests for confirmation from insurance companies.
I left a message for the BCNs yesterday and one of them phoned me back by the end of the day. She had checked my records, which did not have a stage specified, and is forwarding the request to the oncologist’s secretary. She told me that 1) when breast cancers are detected early, staging is relatively unimportant, so they often don’t specify or assign a stage in the reports, just the grade, and 2) that oncologists provide TWIMC letters as needed on a regular basis, for insurance, employment, annuities, early retirement and pensions and so on. She told me to be sure to keep a copy.
Different centres probably have different policies on this. The important point is that you should be able to get a letter if you need one.