Hi Tammy-
I'm a Dr. Spitz patient at Rockwood as well. (hi Lori!) I just had my RNY done March 3. I think Dr. Spitz and staff are excellent! Really top notch.

I'll second Lori's thought about being patient... its a long road. Once a month, there is an information seminar- you can go ahead and sign up for that before you get your referral if you like. I know the one I went to was in the middle of the month (in Nov) so it might be coming right up. You must attend that seminar before you get an appointment.

You can do all your pre-op stuff in Tri-Cities. I live in Grand Coulee and did all my testing locally and they had no problem with it at all.

One "tip" for you... I found that when trying to get a hold of my case worker, she responded much quicker to emails than by phone.

Good luck- you're going to do great!

Corey

Hi Tammy,

Rockwood is great as it offers a "one stop shopping" experience for everything. For my testing, I had to have the usual bloodwork, an upper GI (to make sure there was no hernia where the band will go - don't know if RNY requires that too though) chest xray, psych eval and EKG. My EKG was fine, but since I have diabetes, the cardiologist wanted a stress test too. All was fine. Once I received the list of tests from my case manager, I made one phone call and they had an appt for the next day for the blood, GI, and xray. The cardio appt was in one week out, then the stress test one more. I had had my psych eval done elsewhere, but they were all set to do that too and I could have had that appt within 10 days. The other benefit to doing it all at Rockwood is that the bariatric office has access to all of the test results the instant they are entered! That really speeds things up. So, I guess if you don't mind a trip or two up here, you could speed things up enormously.

Rockwood and all of their services are preferred providers on my insurance (United Healthcare) so that wasn't an issue for me to get it all there too. The longest thing was getting the initial appointment once I had sent all of my weight history charts from other places where I'd been treated to Rockwood. They had to have a 5 year history that I was the weight that I am before surgery. It was like 5 weeks out so perhaps you can call and bug them to get your initial appointment to be seen by the doctor asap. They won't schedule you for testing though until after your initial appointment and they get insurance approval. They have their protocol that the follow for ease of scheduling for them, and they won't deviate from it. For my insurance, the approval came in 10 days once submitted.

Hang in there....and be tenacious!

Lori

Hi Lori, thank you for answering.  I am going to do RNY - lap bypass, or at least that I what I want to do, perhaps the doc will say something different.  My ins. required me to lose 5% of my weight before they would give me a referral to the surgeon, so I got that this weekend and will call Monday to schedule that and schedule the psych eval (ins told me 2 places I could schedule that with) for hopefully the same day.  Can you give me an idea of what all pre-op testing you've had to do?  I recently had my yearly physical and mammorgram and eye exam, so perhaps that will help a bit.  I'm just interested in what all you've had to do, hopefully some of it can be done in the tri-cities so I don't have to go to spokane for everything.  Thank you so much for your reply and your thoughts on the clinic and all.

Tammy

Dr Spitz at Rockwood is my doctor. I am scheduled for lapband surgery on April 7th. So far, I have been very pleased with my choice. The process is daunting and you have to muster patience, but well worth it. I would rather them be completely throrough than hurry it up and miss something that can cause problems later.

I have read so many profiles of other patients there and they all give great ratings to the surgeons and staff. Of course, I haven't had surgery yet, but the only caution I can give at this point is that you really have to keep up on all of the pre-op testing. They won't give you a surgery date until everything is completed and approved, and my case manager missed that my psych evaluation was done and kept waiting for it to come in when it was already in my file, having been done two months before. She quickly submitted me for approval to the surgeon once I was able to communicate to her that the test was right there in my chart.

That's my experiece thus far, and I would be delighted to answer any questions you might have! Don't hesitate to ask. If you are going for the lap band, you would have to travel here to Spokane for your fills, or you might could arrange for them there in Tri-Cities.

Best wishes as you continue on your journey!

Lori

Thanks Steve!  I actually try to run a 5K every weekend. I use the site www.mapmyrun.com to  map out runs near my home (Southworth/Sedgwick). The bad thing: Either direction I go out of my driveway is a HILL!  The GOOD thing: Hill workouts burn more calories, increase endurance and strength train legs. 

Let me know if you want to join me some time! (My DH can't run due to back surgery, so I typically go solo or my 15 yr. old daughter goes).

Thanks again!
Kathy