Pissed off

I feel like I have been nothing but yanked around for the better part of a year with the doctor's office.  I officially closed my case with them today.  I am in need of a revision.  I live in upstate NY where apparently they are way behind the 8 ball on this stuff.  Because they won't even talk DS much less anything else. 

I have jumped through every hoop imaginable but my insurance CDPHP will not cover anything out of network and they recommendede Ellis bariatric to me saying they do revisions.  Ellis is just getting certified to do Stomaphyx which I have heard nothing good about so I am not interested and my insurance does not cover it. 

I have had the increasing feeling of ging to the used car lot going there, they sell the medifast and require a 12 week stint on it before they do any kind of surgery, then it was the stomaphyx which they now have a finance company for if your insurance does not cover it and when I got there this morning they now are selling a line of vitamins.  I want a medical doctor that can help me not a convenience store sucking in every overweight person witht hei gimmicks.

So, I have been going for almost a year it takes me an hour one way to drive there and today I say I want to talk real revision surgery not stomaphyx and they tell me there is nothing they can do for me they do not want to do a surgical revision on me basically laying the blame on me for the first surgery not working even though the stoma is wide open and the staple line is in a place that would have made the original pouch much larger than it shoudl have been.  I take the blame as well but I am so tired of the blame game and the games in general. 

I have no doubt I was shut down from a revision today because I don't want a stomaphyx I know they are playing this that if they leave me with no other choices I will give in.

I need to get a revision done but I need more options with my insurance and with surgeons who are more advanced in this area. 

Any suggestions/advice/help will be greatly appreciated. 

I'm assuming you had RNY originally there.  I believe there is a surgeon up in Saranac Lake who does DS, a Dr. Hill I believe.  There is also a bariatric group affiliated with Albany Med but I don't know what proceedures they do.  Possibly if you speak with a surgeon first who does the proceedure you want that they can work with your insurance company for you.  Good luck I know it can be very frustrating.

Dr Clark is doing your revision in June?  Can I ask what kind and what your issues were?  I don't understand why they have dragged this out so long for me and seem to have never been for real in the first place?  My original surgery was at Albany Med and I went back there but they did not want to even talk to me about it. 

I saw that guy's name in Saranac I will have to check and see. 

Yes he did my lap band and will do my RNY in June.  I had mine done in Aug. 2007 and removed in Oct. 2008 due to acid reflux issues and the fact that it just didn't work for me, never lost weight with the band only before it on the Medifast.  I should have had the RNY in the first place but changed my mind kind of last minute.

My daughter had her RNY done through their team also but both of ours were done at Ellis H.  She's done really well with hers and I'm hoping I will do much better with the RNY.  I'm still waiting on approval but was scheduled for surgery unless that changes.

Before I even had mine removed I was thinking about DS too and made an appt. to see that doctor up in Lake Placid but it's just too far for me and if there is a problem or emergency I don't want to be that far from my surgeon so I cancelled the appt.  The hospital up there and surgeon seemed to have good reviews.

I got an over-fill once in my band and one of the surgeons met me at their office down in Schenectady after midnight to take out some of my fill so I feel pretty secure with them.  It was one of those situations where you can't even swallow your own spit without vomitting.  My daughter also had a stricture with her RNY and they met us at one of the hospitals down there when she was getting fluids due to her dehydration so I do have faith in them but not with the type of surgery I had.  I know everyone can have different experiences with doctors and procedures and hope you can get some resolve with yours.

~~I have had the increasing feeling of ging to the used car lot going there, they sell the medifast and require a 12 week stint on it before they do any kind of surgery, then it was the stomaphyx which they now have a finance company for if your insurance does not cover it and when I got there this morning they now are selling a line of vitamins.  I want a medical doctor that can help me not a convenience store sucking in every overweight person witht hei gimmicks.~~

Wow... they have quite the scam going on.  It really makes me angry when these stupid and greedy surgeons such as yours take advantage of how desperate we are to lose weight.  It's not right.

Have you attempted to file a complaint against the doctor with your insurance company?  If they get enough unhappy patients they really do act on it.

I just want to stick up for my bariatric surgeon's group a bit.  They do sell Medifast there and vitamins there but at a much cheaper rate than if you were to purchase it through the Medifast company directly.  So they're doing us a service by supplying it to us at a cheaper rate.  The vitamins are something I will take once I revise to RNY but my daughter had the RNY last May there and prior to supplying this supplemental vitamin we had to purchase many differnet ones and now it also saves us a lot of money by only needing to purchase one.  I've dealt with their staff for a few years due to my lap band and my daughter's RNY and I believe they are very skilled surgeons but that doesn't mean that once in a while someone will have a bad experience this could happen anywhere I suppose.

Hi

Duodenalswitch.com has an up to date list of revision surgeons, but if you post on the DS board here with the area you might be prepared to travel then people will usually chime in with names.

DS revision is the hardest one to do, so even if you decided on RNY revision they might be able to do that as well. Most seem able to help with insurance issues too.

As for finance, if self-pay ends up being your only option then there will be information from the DSers on the likely costs of this.

Sal

Hello JustMe:

You have been ran through the ringer like many others on this site. I too have gone through what you have with several practices. I have decided to have an ERNY which isn't the most popular revision on this site but it is the best choice for me.

DS Revision was my first choice but insurance issues and extensive scar tissue from three prior abdominal surgeries have me going with ERNY.

So I'm not sure if you can travel or not but if you can. One of the most renoun surgeons for DS Revision is Dr. Husted in Kentucky. He really has a great system for revising RNY'ers to DS, even the very difficult ones like mine with major scarring. He has a couple unique procedures to get past that difficulty that other surgeons do not do. It is my understanding they are his unique methods only done by him.

I'm not sure if you know the differences between ERNY and DS or endoscopic revision. But the outcomes for endoscopic revision are somewhat bleak...There is also banding an RNY and Sleeving an RNY and Vergito.

Also if you have issues such as hernia, bowel obstructions, strictures or anything such as that which many RNY'ers have prior to Revision lots of time the surgery can be done as repair and covered by insurance.

Check out all your options and Dr.s I'm traveling to Arizona from Utah. It's about a 7 hour trip but if my insurance would have covered DS I would have been traveling from Utah to Kentucky or California.

Good Luck Hope this is informative for you.

JRolfson