Catheter was in place during procedure but removed after procedure. In
my case, no catheter post-op. Others may have had a post-op catheter.

Mine was covered under Medicare as follows:

         Amount        Medicare         Medicare       Bill To
         Charged       Approved         Paid           Patient

         19032         10199            8153           2046

About 16% of the billing was from the urologist and the rest from the
brachy guy.

Yep! About $25,000

No cath after the procedure. It was removed. Proved he could pee on his own
and he was out of the hospital!
Bev

I had Brachytherapy last December.  Catheter was in until the next morning.
No discomfort.  Leading up to and after receiving all the bills: hospital,
oncologist, urologist, and anthesist, my out of pocket expenses were $4,000.
(I was not under Medicare at the time.)  The hospital bill alone (for 3
hours use of their operating room) came to $46,000, Blue Cross knocked that
down to $36,000.   As a comparison, my wife just had breast surgery and
reconstructive surgery.  She was in the operating room for 9 1/2 hours, and
seven nights in the hospital.  One surgeon and one plastic surgeon in
attendance.   Hospital charge: $56,000.  It's probably not possible to
"estimate" costs.  At this point, I have a gut feeling the hospitals bill
you and the insurance companies for all the other surgeries that they can't
collect on.  Of course they can only collect what Medicare and the insurance
companies have agreed on, but some of these charges probably do slip
through.

Nov. 05

no catheter

flomax was prescribed for about 1 yr.

psa tests  @ 3 months for 1 year

now once every 6 months

no problem

Apparent cost  $30,000.

discount of about $10,000

my cost  about $1000

j.

op?

In my case, no catheter was used during or after the procedure.  As the
responses in this thread show, practitioners differ about the need.  But
I at any rate did fine without one.