Okay, I never comment on posts anymore but I feel the need to for this post.
I have been using Plume for nearly 9 months and have had 0 problems with them so far. For me, this service has enabled me to begin a medical transition that had been gatekept by my lack of insurance, a lack of knowledge on the part of my primary care physician (who was supportive but unwilling to administer care he wasn't trained for), and the prohibitive distance of the nearest office qualified to give those services.
$99 a month is less than a third of what I would have had to pay between gas, office visits, and out-of-pocket bloodwork and contrary to what this post says, bloodwork is included in your payment. Without plume, the bloodwork alone would cost me $300 every 3 months, or more depending on the clinic.
When I began my care, I was connected on a video call with a medical professional who ran through all of my previous medical conditions, talked through my mental health, and even talked about previous attempts at transition. We talked about how years ago, I had attempted to begin treatment on Spironolactone without any medical consultation or prescription, using a grey market site to order from Canada because local professionals had refused to treat me. They listened to my concerns, and were able to build my prescriptions based on my previous experiences to avoid the debilitating mood swings I'd had on previous medication, and even altered my dose of estrogen below the normal based on my concerns.
What's more, when writing my prescriptions, they not only went through a list of local pharmacies and the prices at each of them, they also set up auto-renewal, and ensured the pharmacy applied the maximum possible discount to my medication. Without any insurance, I get my medications (including needles for my estrogen) for less than $100 every 3 months. That's lower than any other single medication I currently have to take regularly.
On top of this, I can text the help line at any time when I have concerns, and will be connected with the same medical professionals who have been in charge of my care since the start, something I couldn't possibly do with my normal physician without exorbitant charges thanks to the broken medical system in this country. They will even set up video calls with the same doctor that began my care at no extra charge.
Every 3 months, when I have my blood tests, they inform me not only of the current hormone levels, but also the target levels they're aiming for in transition, and when these were above safe levels, they have altered my prescription plan to fit.
All in all, this is not only the cheapest, but the best medical care I have received since my parents dropped me from their ridiculously expensive insurance plan.
As for the claims about their site, I would have to go back and find those, but I can garuntee the doctor I was paired with is well-qualified (we had a full discussion about this when I had my consultation) and never made any of the claims mentioned above, nor do I recall seeing them on their site.
This service is the only reason I'm able to transition at all. If not for Plume, I would not have begun hormones at all, and I can promise you by this point, after everything else I've been through in my life, I would be very very unhappy, if I were still alive at all.
If there are issues I'm unaware of with this service, I would love to be filled in, but reading through this "beware", it feels entirely uninformed, certainly not aware of how the service actually works, which is a massive red flag in my books. If you have criticisms of the service, please at least do your research before making people panic about it.
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