looking for a ds surgeon

Hi,
The appointment went great.  He spent a lot of time talking to me.  He was glad that I had already worked hard to educate myself on the various operations and already preferred the DS.  He definately does the DS.  He does not do lapband since he said it was a waste of time for most people.  He said the RNY is a good operation if you can't have the DS but the DS is far better and is his preferred operation.  I go in Thursday for a psych eval and then they said that they will try submitting to the insurance and see what they say.  I've done a bunch of dieting with my Primary care physician but he never had me come in more then every couple months for weigh in (which violated the requirements the insurance had for some of the meds he put me on).  Dr Hoddinott is hoping the insurance will accept the past dieting or approve the surgery pending that I complete a 3 month supervised diet.   I don't know anything about if he accepts medicaid since I have Aetna insurance. 

Kathy

I called Dr. Hoddinott's office and they *do* take Medicaid.  Now I'm  just waiting for a return call from the nurse to confirm that he does perform the DS!!!! I'm so excited that this might really be a possiblity for me!!!

According to hi sprofile here, which could be out of date of course, he's only performed 25 DS out of close to 1000 surgeries.  I would check to see how mnay of these he has performed.  My husband is also looking for a DS surgeon in Florida, but there don't appear to be any experienced ones.  Look at this link for the more experienced, highly rated ones:

http://www.dsfacts.com/North-American-Duodenal-Switch-Surgeons.html#fl

The only one listed for Florida is no longer practcing in Florida.  I contacted him and he is doing some DSs in Paris, not sure how long he'll be away.