Mt. Carmel West...
Mine was performed by Dr. Custer as well.......
Down 105 lbs in four months and 16" inches off the waist, I'm very satisfied with my results.
Both Custer and Price are great doctors. There is also a new doctor in their practice performing the bypass, but I haven't met anyone who has used him as of yet.
The bad news about the good doctors is that there will always be a wait. I went through a similiar waiting period last year. While it initially seems frustrating trying to get into see the doctor, I think it's also time well spent reflecting your decisions and to ensure you made the right choice.
Also, there are things that you can use this time for in a positive manner. Make sure you understand all your insurance requirements.
Do you need 6 months of diet history? Now is the time to start building that if you don't have it, otherwise you'll wait another six months.
The same holds true for the psych eval and sleep study. If you think you may have sleep apnea, you might as well address that now. It will only slow things down later. It took me over 30 days to get my psych eval scheduled and the results back.
The more verbose documentation you can gather now will make the insurance process simplier and easier.
If there are doctors with quicker availability dates, then I would be concerned about why they don't have a queue like the other doctors that perform the bypass. I would suspect that they are either new or don't have the reputation that the others doctors have.
I was Dr. Custer's first RNY patient and I had the surgery at Mt. Carmel West. The surgery was 11/5/01. I was 248 pounds on the day of surgery. By 10 months I was at my goal weight of 125 pounds and have maintained it since then. I love Dr. Custer. Mt. Carmel West was great because you get a private room. I was treated well there too. Since it was my first surgery since I was 4 years old, I was terrified. But I got excellent care from both the doctor and the hospital.