Depends on the kind of treatments. What was killing me then was the cost of doctor's appointments to get on hormones, which are generally covered (whereas it's a pain in the ass to get surgeries covered even with good insurance). Doctors are expensive if you don't have insurance.
When I first started out, in order to avoid the doctor costs, I ended up reading the clinical guidelines myself, finding a place for me to order my own blood tests, and looking up a reputable overseas online pharmacy I could order the medications from. The blood tests cost me $60 a pop, and the hormones cost around $80/month from the online pharmacy I used. Now, I'm also going to mention that I was also spectacularly underpaid at the startup I was working at then. That $140/month hurt. Badly. And I was constantly worried customs would confiscate the meds. Now, estradiol and spironolactone aren't controlled substances, so I couldn't be arrested for ordering them online, but theoretically customs could confiscate them anyway because they're Rx-only medications and then I'd be out $80 for nothing (yes, there is legally a level between OTC and controlled, where it's illegal to sell but not illegal to buy). In practice, they only do this one week a year (look up Operation Pangea) because they don't have the resources to do it but there was still a chance.
After a few months, I grew uncomfortable doing this without a doctor's supervision, so I eventually decided to suck up the costs and find an endocrinologist. The doctor's bill was in the neighborhood of $200 per visit, and because I was still early in my transition, I was seeing my doctor monthly at first. Oh, and I was still paying $60 to Private MD Labs for each blood test, because it turned out to be far cheaper to get my blood tests through them than through the provider my doctor worked with. The one consolation is that the medications themselves were cheaper; estradiol and spironolactone are both on the $4 generics list at Walmart, so my actual cost of meds went down from $80/month around $30/month (my doses were such that I was taking multiple pills per day). But those endo visits ruined my finances...
When I first started out, in order to avoid the doctor costs, I ended up reading the clinical guidelines myself, finding a place for me to order my own blood tests, and looking up a reputable overseas online pharmacy I could order the medications from. The blood tests cost me $60 a pop, and the hormones cost around $80/month from the online pharmacy I used. Now, I'm also going to mention that I was also spectacularly underpaid at the startup I was working at then. That $140/month hurt. Badly. And I was constantly worried customs would confiscate the meds. Now, estradiol and spironolactone aren't controlled substances, so I couldn't be arrested for ordering them online, but theoretically customs could confiscate them anyway because they're Rx-only medications and then I'd be out $80 for nothing (yes, there is legally a level between OTC and controlled, where it's illegal to sell but not illegal to buy). In practice, they only do this one week a year (look up Operation Pangea) because they don't have the resources to do it but there was still a chance.
After a few months, I grew uncomfortable doing this without a doctor's supervision, so I eventually decided to suck up the costs and find an endocrinologist. The doctor's bill was in the neighborhood of $200 per visit, and because I was still early in my transition, I was seeing my doctor monthly at first. Oh, and I was still paying $60 to Private MD Labs for each blood test, because it turned out to be far cheaper to get my blood tests through them than through the provider my doctor worked with. The one consolation is that the medications themselves were cheaper; estradiol and spironolactone are both on the $4 generics list at Walmart, so my actual cost of meds went down from $80/month around $30/month (my doses were such that I was taking multiple pills per day). But those endo visits ruined my finances...