finding the right surgeon

Nov. 2016 I was in Vanderbilt hospital's op room thinking my life would be back on track when I woke up....wrong! They discovered I had cirrhosis and felt it best to do a biopsy and close. I understand they were worried about portal hypertension but even after I went through testing and found no portal hypertension and no other signs or symptoms of liver damage and cirrhosis was due to NASH. However, vandy now says they just don't operate on people w/cirrosis. I have read where it should still be safe for me to have gastric bypass. I just need to find the right surgeon. I have Medicare and MS Medicaid. I am willing to mail medical records for surgeon to look over. I'm just running out of hope.

Sounds like it's time to pull a list of doctors and start making phone calls! Hopefully you can get some good news.

They all want you to come in and charge your insurance. Don't know how much more my insurance will do and don't want to waste. Need someone to look over files and let me know

How about checking out surgeons' info seminars? You can usually ask a question or two of the surgeon, and you could do a very general, "I have this health condition, do you ever consider operating on a case like this?" Then you can set up initial appointments with the doctors who may be willing.

It's a shot

Thanks

Hello,

We are sorry to hear all about you have gone through. Vanderbilt is a wonderful facility and we are sad to hear they won't help you. Please PM me the exact name of your Medicaid and we will see if we can find a surgeon that will take your insurance. Am I correct Medicare is primary and Medicaid is secondary?

Regards,

Kathy

Yes Medicare is primary and secondary just says Mississippi Medicaid. I just need to find someone who has a history of dealing with patients who have cirrhosis. I know it's been done. I live just outside Memphis, TN

You might try doing a search for both bariatrics and hepatology and see if you find any surgeons with both specialties. I suspect that my surgeon could help you (if you don't mind travelling to SF; don't know about insurance issues tho,) as he specializes in biliopancreatic transplants as well as bariatrics, so if anyone can handle your problems, it would be someone like him. You can probably do a phone or email consult on your situation to see what options are workable, or if he knows of other similarly qualified surgeons closer to you.

Thanks