This may seem like a basic question, but I was reading Augmentation and it isnt clear what Treatment Time actually means in regards to Genetech.

Is Treatment Time how long one treatment LASTS or how long it TAKES to be effective or completed?

I understood it as being how long the treatment takes. Read some of the accompanying fluff. I believe it is about a woman who undergoes genetic re-alignment or something like that.

Treatment time is the length of time you'll be spending in a giant vat of goo while your DNA is rearranged (And possibly including a bit of time to get used to the changes in a bed or something). This rearrangement is permanent, even more so than cyber or bioware is, because your body actually propagates the new DNA. The only possible way to remove Genetech is to undergo a similarly long treatment to change your DNA back.

Mind you, that the rules says the cost of the genetic treatment includes the costs of being inside a vat full of goo but I cal shenaningans on this one. Let's take an elite shadow clinic for instance; basic care costs 2k, if we consider that being inside a vat of goo is similar in cost to basic care it doesn't hold up. Genwipe costs 60k and 2 months of treatment, you are paying 1k per day as medical costs for both the treatment and the personel taking care of you, when the most basic care of said hospital is 2k...
OUR games, gene treatment must pay for the treatment and the time at the hospital (as intensive care).

An interesting assertion that's not without its merits, but there are other factors that I think support the RAW.

- In-patient services for a conscious person are rather more extensive than those required for one constantly lying in a vat, like hospitality, entertainment, comfort, staffing, etc. Think of it in terms of lifestyle costs – they don't even need separate rooms.
- It's a well-established phenomenon that longer-running services work out cheaper than the sum of an equivalent duration of ad hoc shorter-running services, similar to buying in bulk.
- Standard patients usually require some diagnosis. There may be a lot of individualised preparation work in genetech treatments, but the treatments listed are established procedures where the problem and desired outcome are known before the patient even makes contact. Standard patients come in with problems that need to be diagnosed – if a new diagnosis was needed in the gene-treatment every few days the price would be higher. Hell, once they're in the vat you don't even have to talk or listen to them, which many medical professionals will claim is a big bonus I'm sure!
- Market willingness can be an odd factor. I once worked in a photographic lab where we charged several pounds to print landscape photos ad hoc, but any that were included in a standard roll of film (yeah, I'm going back a bit here) only raised the price by about 30p for each shot. When I asked the manager about this oddity he simply shrugged and replied "those are the prices the market will allow". So if people were prepared to spend more on their gene-treatments I would expect that the sophisticated market analysis agents would have set the price higher, but they didn't so they aren't.

Good old aerospider, all excellent points.

Also keep in mind that intensive care is... well, intensive. You're talking about a huge number of hours of highly paid individuals being devoted to the person each day. For the vat, well, someone needs to check that you haven't died every so often and that's about it. Intensive care also assumes you're being pumped full of all kinds of (already expensive and then overcharged because you're in a hospital) medicine. Geneware however already covers the price of that medicine.

So yeah, spending time in the vat is possibly cheaper than spending time in intensive care, but it is also exceedingly less expensive from the hospital's point of view too.

And that makes Augmented Healing simply more economical, too. And nicer for the patient as well, using simsense.

So standard and intensive care is all about oldfashioned people not wanting to hang around in goo and backalley hospitals not being able to afford upgrades.

Gene Therapy on page 81 describes the process of treatment taking weeks or months to accomplish. However, it also mentions that gene therapy can, and should, be done in parallel. For example, both Adapsin and Reakt transgenics take one month of treatment, but they can be done in the same month rather than taking two months total. If a character wants to get lots of gene therapy done, they should save up and do it all in one go. That way they're in the tank for only the length of the longest treatment rather than something like a year.

Having gene therapy take months seems a little odd.

I mean what do you do when you have to say "Ok guys, I'm gonna go float in a vat for three months, seeya!" So now you're sitting out for several sessions earning no cash and no Karma. "I'm gonna use a free action to crap in my tank and hope the nurse sees me soon."

That's basically when everyone ought to take a month or two of down time, provided they've got the money to cover their rent.

Hackers can patch their software if they've been falling behind. Riggers can fix up their drones with new surprises. Augmented characters can see to several upgrades. Awakened and Emerged characters can do an Initiation/Submergence tasks. Anyone can see to improving their skills (groups take a month of training), and magicians can focus some on spells.

And don't forget, your DNA is in constant replication and repair. Part of the gene therapy is making sure that the whole procedure actually holds. If the change to your genetic code isn't completed in every single cell there's a chance for regression.

On the complete flip side, players could have more than one character (maybe roommates?) and play the other character while the one is getting his/her DNA altered.

Yeah getting gene ware in game really only works in "character tree"-games, were every player has multiple characters and the teams are formet for a run based on what's needed.
In a game like that it's not a big problem if one of your characters is out for a month or two, she just won't be available for runs during that time.
Ofcource a game like that works best if you have more then one GM, allowing one to possibly play more then one character simultaneously in different runs.

Huh? Downtime always works, no multiple characters needed.

Advancing a single skill grouo by one point is one month at minimum, half if you try and rush it. Of course, that also can be one while in the jar and using VR.

Matrix work seems to be the only way you could get a treatment and not be completely useless to a runner team.

Assuming that you're not sedated for the entire treatment.

Which seems to reinforce the "Treatment Time kinda blows" idea because you're basically doing nothing productive for upwards of a month besides crapping in your own nutrient jacuzzi. So you sit out of several gaming sessions, earning no money and no Karma. I'm not really seeing the upside here.

It's called downtime. People do that to relax or train.
Otherwise, your earned money or karma means nothing.

Keyword: "may". As there's no listed requirements, it's GM's prerogative that a particular treatment requires sedation, a person may opt to be sedated for the period as well, or for a number of other reasons there may be no Matrix access for the patient. The story example on page 72 of Augmentation has the former Ms. Yoshiko Hino unconscious for her 32 day ethnicity alteration.

Keyword "may", indeed: The rules allow it by default, even explicitly for painful treatments.

…to stop his players from actually playing, and eventually coming to the sessions altogether, indeed.
GM's always have the option to go crazy, so I don't see your point.

…is just like the pictures in the books – nice at best, but irrelevant to the actual rules. In fact, most of the stories are so bad that they should have replaced them with blank space.

From a rules perspective maybe. From a setting/feel perspective I like them.

Seriously? The Picador story? No… just no.

The stories are a great read, in my opinion, too. They may not be completely accurate to the rules, but they do give a person a feel for the intent the rules are trying to have.

Also, in the case of the ethnicity alteration, I believe it said something about her cutting herself off for safety reasons. In that case, it would be best to take the full sedation.