GRRRRR!

Ok, I went through the process and got the approval by my insurance company.  My Cardiologist who was acting as my primary care physician for almost twenty years wrote a recommendation letter to the inurance company initially which helped with my approval.  Now that I am approved.  I have a pre-op exam coming up by the hospital on the 16th.  The nurse coordinator for the surgeon's office said to make an appt with my pcp afterwards to go over the results and get final approval for the surgery.

My wife called his office today to tell them what was going on and to make the appt.  Now all of a sudden he will not do the final approval for me.  I was hospitalized at the beginning of the year with a bad infection in my leg and he wanted me to get a new pcp at the time.  However he was the one who even introduced me to the surgeon who is going to be doing my wls.  His office said that he can give cardiac clearance but nothing else.  wtf!  I have been in a mood ever since.  What do I do now???  Does anyone know a good PCP (In the Miami area) that will look over my pre-op results and medical records and give me clearance for surgery?  My surgery is scheduled for Nov 10th and I don't want to have to reschedule.  I have already put in for the time off at work and everything.  Thanks for listening....

Chris V.

Hi, I would call your surgeons office and tell them what happened and ask that they recommend someone. They usually have a few that thew work with. Hope this works out for you. Laurie

Well after a lot of calls today we (my wife and I) finally found a primary care physician who will see me after my pre-ops and hopefully do my final approval if everything is ok with my pre-op tests.  Its really a shame though.  I have been seeing this cardiologist as my primary care doctor for apx 20 years and he is very familiar with me and my lab results, etc.  I didn't think I would have a problem with him at all.  Oh well...

Best of Luck. Hope you get everything you need. Laurie

Here's a neat twist.  I found out from a friend that went through the surgery this week that his surgery almost got postponed because no one had told him he needed a final cardiac clearance before surgery.  He managed to get one in the nick of time and had his surgery as scheduled and came through it fine.  Well I called my cardiologist's office today and left a msg with his answering service.  He personally called back a while later and spoke to my wife and advised her that the office had given out the wrong information and that he would have been more than willing to give me the full clearance as well as the cardiac clearance.  (This after I scrambled around finding a new PCP!)  Well now, just to make sure, I have an appt with him and the new doctor, so hopefully at least one of them can clear me.  I have my preop class and testing tomorrow at the hospital!