Sorry to hear that your going thru this as well. I know how you must be feeling, its horrible but you seem to be doing amazing in the way you have dealt with this. You have achieved more in a few weeks than ive achieved in months so you are doing great. You have had alot of great advice here so I dont need to chip in apart from support you. Your post has actually helped me alot as well. I too contacted Dr Bitan and have been blown away at his quick response, within a day, thats just amazing. He seems like such a helpfull and easy to deal with surgeon, I understand the comfort you get from him puting you at ease as I had the same response. He cheered me right up today.
From the quote I got from Dr B I'd say that you have recieved a substantial discount although I do agree that maybe it should be less especially if he is still higher than in the US. It seems like he's maybe only charging for the costs that dont go to him like the hospital and hardware costs but not his fee maybe.
Do you know if Dr Bitan's cost of $15000 included the hospital costs or was that just his fee's? Will your insurance not cover any of the costs now or is just the surgery costs they wont pay?
I have found this article regarding the zero profile fusion cages:
A New Stand-Alone Cervical Anterior Interbody Fusion Device: Biomechanical Comparison With Established Anterior Cervical Fixation Devices
Scholz, Matti MD; Reyes, Phillip M. BSE; Schleicher, Philipp MD; Sawa, Anna G. U. MS; Baek, Seungwon MS; Kandziora, Frank MD; Marciano, Frederick F. MD, PhD; Crawford, Neil R. PhD
A New Stand-Alone Cervical Anterior Interbody Fusion Device:... : Spine
send me an email if you want the full copy. It looks like its just a low profile fusion cage that is quite new to the market so may not be approved in the US yet. I would ask what type of fusion hardware they will be using, it cant hurt. Great to see that you are getting it dealt with so quickly and best of luck with your decisions.
Mark