A Second Opinion Could Save Your Life

It’s an all-too-familiar scenario: A woman visits her doctor multiple times for complaints of weight loss, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Her symptoms are chalked up to overwork and stress. Six months later, she visits her gynecologist, who tells her she has ovarian cancer. Six months after that, she’s dead.

Credit: huffingtonpost.com

Despite the mythology surrounding the medical profession, doctors are human, and they regularly make mistakes. According to a study published in the Journal of Patient Safety in 2013, an estimated 440,000 hospitalized patients in the United States die each year due to preventable medical error — that’s the equivalent of two jumbo jets colliding in midair and killing everyone on board every single day. Even more disturbing is the fact that this estimate does not include errors that occur in doctor’s offices and outpatient clinics, where an estimated 40 percent of patients receive an incorrect diagnosis — and incorrect treatment — every year.

Not every medical error is life-threatening, and many minor ailments that are misdiagnosed by a doctor eventually just go away on their own. But in far too many cases, a missed or inaccurate diagnosis leads to irrevocable harm and even death.

This begs the question: When should a patient seek a second opinion? According to most experts, anyone who receives a cancer diagnosis should request a second opinion right away. The same holds true for rare diseases and chronic conditions that require long-term, toxic or extremely expensive therapy. Says Tricia Torrey, a patient advocate from Syracuse, New York, who was misdiagnosed with a rare cancer in 2004, “Very few decisions have to be made on the spot. You can think about them, and you should think about them. You should absolutely feel comfortable in saying, ‘I am not sure what I need to do, but I think I need a second opinion.’” Adds Jonathan Schaffer, an orthopedic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, “If your physician doesn’t support you getting a second opinion, see how fast you can run.” 

A second opinion can save you from unnecessary treatment.
(Credit: thebreastcaresite.com)

In most cases, insurance companies will pay for a second opinion, and — if the first two doctors don’t agree — a third. However, even if your insurance refuses to pay, other options exist. In California, patients with limited financial resources who are diagnosed with cancer can get a second opinion at secondopinion.org, a nonprofit that has been providing free second opinions from board-certified cancer specialists since 1969.

Additionally, a number of second-opinion “telemedicine” websites have sprung up over the last decade, some of which are associated with the most prestigious hospitals in the United States. One of these is Cleveland Clinic My Consult, where patients submit a detailed medical history online and receive a second opinion from a Cleveland Clinic specialist in about 10 to 14 days. The  report includes a review of their diagnosis (or a different diagnosis in some cases); answers to their questions; a review of treatment options and alternatives; and information regarding clinical trials. The cost of the service is typically between $550 and $750 and must be paid upfront.

A similar option is available from Partners Healthcare, a Harvard Medical School consortium which includes doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The service works much like the one at Cleveland Clinic: Patients submit their medical information online and pay a fee of between $575 to $925 in advance. About one week later, they receive a second opinion and treatment recommendations from a physician who specializes in their disease.