I wish I hadn't went to the Centennial Seminar!!!

THIS IS A RANT don't read if you don't want to hear the ramblings of someone that's unhappy!!! Today I went to the Vanderbilt Seminar and lets just say that I was so disappointed that I wanted to scream.  The guy that did the seminar went on and on and his clips were horrible, he didn't leave enough time after for people to ask all of the questions that they wanted to ask because he had to go do something at 1:00P.M. which meant that he stopped talking at around 12:50p.m. and left like 10min's for questinos and answers.  People didn't get to ask the insurance lady very many questions while I was there because she was off in a cornor just sitting there she did speak up once to talk about medicare/medicade how you have to have an out-of-network filed first.  The room was small and really hot, he had only one overhead screen and the people in the back had to have good vision to see it, they had a few seats for overweight people but the one that I got stuck with was small and in the very back of the room and hurt my hips.  They offered no pens for filling out their papers that they gave out so if you didn't bring your own pen then you were just S*** outta luck.  OH he didn't know ANY of the costs if you were self pay except that he THOUGHT the Nut's charge (WHICH IS NOT COVERED by any insurance) is $250.00 up front and he had no info on hospital costs or anything like that and when asked about it he informed us that he has PEOPLE that deal with all that so he didn't really know but he thought just to get to see him if you were self pay for a CONSULT (MY AASSS just another way for them to suck out money from the insurances/people) that it could go from $217.00 up to over $600.00 just depending on all that was talked about and reviewed in your charts.  SPEAKING of charts if your PCP is horrible about sending your medical records then YOU PERSONALLY have to pay the money it costs to get them and then you have to send them to your PCP that is to then send them to the people at Vanderbilt!!  WHich means if your PCP wont request the paperwork from all of your other PCP doctors for the past 5 years then it is you that have to go to the PCP doctors that you have seen in the past personally go in see them file out the request/authorization forms and get them to send them to your current PCP and then when they get the info they are supposed to send the info to vanderbilt.... WELL HELLO my pcp sucks at requesting information from other doctors I know for a fact I told her that I would need her to request several different doctors and she was like "Well lets just see what they send me first" WHICH means I'll have to wait for another appointment with her just to sign the dang forms that she will then have to wait another 2 to 4 weeks to receive.... blah blah blah NOT HAPPY HERE!!! He wasn't informative enough about the COST Of the surgery in my opinion.  VANDERBILT is trying to suck as much MONEY out of people as they possibly can because GET THIS!! YOU NOW have to go threw this guy named Chris something-or-other and have tests run threw HIM first and if he feels that you are worthy and ready for the surgery then it is HIM which will send information and let you then go see the actual doctors that preform the surgeries.  OKAY now HE is just ONE PERSON and there were at least 30 people at that meeting and just HOW Freaking long is it going to be that all of the people that want to have these surgeries are going to have to be forced to wait just becuase they have to go threw his butt first!!!!????  I WISH I hadn't went to CENTENNIAL's seminar because it was so wonderful compared to the crap job that Vanderbilt did today... I mean it was like getting ROYAL treatment at Centennial and getting treated like you were some mangy, deformed, skunk off the street from the Vanderbilt one.  IF ANYONE Has been to a VANDERBILT meeting GO TO A CENTENNIAL one and you'll see the difference right off!!! PLUS at centennial you actually get to meet a doctor and have them STAY until ALL QUESTIONS are answered they have several different women that do insurance stuff an they all stay there are several different monitors in the room for people to view and one HUGE moster one at the front of the room, the chairs were ALL comfortable they offered 8oz diet cokes, water, tea, cups with ice, and even little bags of pretzzles, popcorn, (lowfat of course) and they GAVE YOU PENS TO FILL OUT THEIR FORMS WITH.  Their presentation sells you on the surgery yet informs you of all the dangers and all of the percentages of people that can die from each operation and the number of patients Dr. Dyer had die were ZERO in over 800 surgeries.  They give you their PRICES on how much it will cost if you wanted to or could pay on your own!  HECK they even give out banking information where people have been able to finance the surgery.  ALL OF THEIR AFTERCARE is completely taken care of at CENTENNIAL FOR LIFE!!!!!!! NOT Just the 6 months after the surgery!!  PLUS all of the appointments and checkup's were included in the aditional price for the meeting that also includes centennials exercise/nuts/and support group meetings are ALL free to you if your insurance will pay for it then after it's paid for, for LIFE as long as it's weight related!!! Just feel like my day was a waste but even though it sucked royally (the only thing that was royal about today) I at least got their FIRST step finished! I WAANAAAANNNNN Have centennial do my surgery!!!! /crying

Hi Angie, I am sorry you had to go thru all that. I have heard of the same thing from others who attended their seminars.  Yes you have to go thru one Dr. to see if you will make a good candidate, before you actually meet with the surgeon.  I have heard a lot of compliments regarding Centennial.  I am a Veteran and the Dr.'s I see at the Nashville hospital are Vanderbilt Dr.'s. They rotate every 3-6 months. They are the worst when it comes to bedside manner.  The one that did my tummy tuck, didn't order any pain medication while I was in the hospital with 70 staples, nor did he order oxygen which I am on when in bed.  Then he blamed me the next morning for trying to leave the hospital where I had to be strapped down.  He said I should never have been qualified for the surgery as I wasn't a good candidate.  He has to see my for my thighs on August 6th, he best approve the surgery or the director will be on his case real fast. Baptist is a good hospital, some of the dr.'s in Nashville work out of Baptist, there's Skyview I think that's what it's called.  Make sure you are comfortable with your surgeon before getting a surgery date.  Yes you have to do the leg work to gather all your records, I had to pay $20 for each of mine.  This isn't an over night process, once you get approved with a Vandy surgeon, doesn't mean you will get a date, that is left up to the hospital.  They have their own waiting list because of so many needing the surgery.  One of my past wls friends had to wait 6 months for them to have an open OR room for her surgery.  So you will have to be patient.  Plus there will be several tests that you may have to do before having surgery. If you have sleep apnea, you will need a level test, make sure you get the report, hiatal hernia that too will need to be checked, get that report. Some Dr.'s require a complete physical and mammogram, get those reports. There will be lab reports, most insurance companies require a 3-6 month Dr. Supervised diet and monthly weigh-ins prior to surgery.  Also the surgeons will want you to lose a certain amount before surgery. This helps to shrink a fatty liver.   I found out I had Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (rare) just two months before I met with my surgeon.  He wanted to make sure my blood levels were in normal range before he did the surgery.  They were, one stipulation was that the night after surgery I was to be given my chemo pills.  I spent 5 days in the hospital, getting blood and potassium, we didn't know until later that the chemo medicine was eating up my potassium.  For the first 4-5 months I was in and out of the hospital because of it. Nine months later my body rejected the chemo pills and I was put on a new one that had just come out in June 06. No side effects, haven't had to have potassium since last October, my hair is growing back in thick again, but it has caused calcifications in my arms, thighs, behind my knees, and this morning I found out that my Pancreas and liver are full of the calcificatons, not including the kidney stone I have.  As for the Pancreas I can live on a liquid diet and hydromorphone for the rest of my life or be tube fed thru an IV.  That is what I am looking at.  Because it's not acute Pancreitis, they won't do surgery.   So whatever health problems you have, get updated testing and gather the reports to submit to your surgery.   May God travel with you on this new Journey.  Kathy

I originally went to the Centennial seminar because my pcp referred me there.  It was as fantastic as you were saying.  I was impressed.  However they don't take my insurance, so my next stop was Baptist.  Their seminar wasn't as grand, but I was happy with it.  There seems to few a few less benefits at Baptist, but I am happy to have Dr. McDowell as my surgeon.  Good Luck to you Angie!

Sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience at Vanderbilt.  That surprises me since I've always heard such good things about Vanderbilt.  I also  went to Centennial for my seminar and Dr. Houston will be doing my surgery once I am approved. I agree with you, the people couldn't have been nicer, the accommodations were very good and they answered any question you had.

I'm sorry that you had trouble with your siminar.  I am currently going thru Vanderbuilt and have not had any rpoblems.  I did have to see Christan the Physian assistant first, but had no problems.  I will go thur them for my nut, and educational plus pre op and post op.,  At our siminar we were in a large room and everyone seemed to have thier questions answered. 

All I can say is that my experience with Vanderbilt has been wonderful.  From the seminar to the aftercare.  And I would like to think I have done very well.  Good luck to whomever you end up with. Paula

I just had a stick up my butt yesterday, I was just very let down by what I saw and heard at the Vanderbilt Seminar.  I wasn't impressed with Chris at all, and I think that if any hospital is going to have a section of their surgical staff for this type of surgery they they dang well need to have more than just ONE DANG GUY for everyone to see first before they can get into see the main doctors that are going to be doing their surgery.  I KNOW this stuff takes time but did YOU GUYS know that after your insurace APPROVES you that you only have A SET NUMBER OF DAYS for that APPROVAL will LAST!!!! And if you haven't gotten in all your appointments with the NUT/Consult ASSISTANT/and Actual DOCTORS that are doing the surgery  THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THREW YOUR INSURANCE TO GET ANOTHER ONE!!! OR at least that is how mine is set up, they will APPROVE you for a CERTAIN number of days and if you haven't seen the doctor before the time runs out then you are basically screwed and you'll have to go back threw the insurance junk all over again. I LOVED CENTENNIAL you actually get to meet with your doctor first and see if you like them instead of having to go threw all the other junk Vandy wants and then if you meet with your doctor and you don't like them or something makes you uncomfortable then again you are screwed because according to what that Chris guy said yesterday you'll have to wait to get to see another one and be RE-EVAULATED by him as to your fitness for the surgery.  JUST BECAUSE You aren't comfortable with one of their doctors SHOULD NOT mean that you aren't a good canadite for this surgery!!!! (Can't spell everyone should know this by now and this program wont allow me to copy/paste/spellcheck and re-copy/paste back into here.) THE waiting list at VANDERBILT is eight months to a whole YEAR before you get to actually get in and see one of the main doctors, and it's actually 6months to 8months if you are a SELF PAYER type of person just to get in even though you have no insurance crap to go threw.  Or that's the numbers that they gave yesterday when I asked him up close, and the fact that he told me that they don't search down my records makes me pissed I didn't ask them to search them down I just asked for consent forms that I could fill out and fax later if nessary and he told me that, and the fact that they wont even see you if they haven't received your medical records just made me want to smack him. Ranting again I need to shut up.... just don't know who else to write all my frustrations tooo that will understand or at least kind of understand. AND I IN NO WAY MEAN TO PUT DOWN OR DEGRADE ANYONE THAT HAS HAD WONDERFUL EXPERIENCES WITH VANDERBILT if you have had wonderful success with them PLEASE tell me and let me know which doctors that you choose because I need to know that they do have good doctors even if you do have to go threw the blah,blah,blah crap up front just to get to see one.  In the end it's worth it to put up with all the crap if I eventually can have this surgery but that doesn't mean that I have to like it!  lol

I had a year from my date of approval to have my surgery. The meeting with Chris shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes. This means he can actually see a lot of patients in a day's time. Try to calm down and see how their actual process works. I think you will find that you are in a panic over nothing.

Hey............To calm your nerves....understand this...for every week you are waiting...get those required tests done. EKG's XRAYs Blood work....Sleep Studies, ABG,Medical Clearance letters...Referral Letters....I did ALL the leg work..if I had waited on my doctors  staff I would still be waiting....I started my Journey in December 2006.....and in the middle of it had to switch doctors and FINALLY get my surgery August 10th!!!............I have three dear friends that have had Dr Dyer do their GBS...all three have done WONDERFULLY!!.....................Together they have lost about 300 pounds The first one had her surgery Sept 2005, the second June 2006 the third July 2006......I wanted Dr Dyer but..I have Medicare and Medicaid....I was told he doesn't accept Medicaid.....I tried Vanderbilt...the same.....Tried Dr Madan.........LOVED HIM....His staff needed to be trained on customer service.........................He and Medicare had a problem... nothing was working out...so I picked Dr VirginiaM Weaver at Saint Francis Hospital in Memphis.....She is Medicare approved....accepts Medicaid as second insurance.....and is one of the TOP  GB Surgeons....She has an unblemished history of leaks with GBS.....Her bedside manner so far is above my expectations!!!!......................NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP!!...................Leticia

I love Centennial!  They did my surgery!  I hop;e it works out for you...