St. John's Bariatrics Bariatric Center

Dr billy is my life saver i have met with him last night. i was supposed to have my bypass done in July and was told a day before i could not have it done due to insurance issues. When i showed up at his office he was very nice telling me he will do my bypass and the nurses in the office are just as sweet they have all helped me so much...

This is the BEST decision I could've ever made! Dr.Billy is a amazing surgeon and runs a first class program. I just thank God that I was able to afford the hefty program fee ($4,000)that he charges because the person you talk to about your insurance and all the program fees(Heather)makes it very clear from the beginning No $$! No Surgery! But I could honestly say that it was money well spent because there isn't any amount that could make me feel any better than the way I feel right now! I walked in to Dr.Billy's office weighing 370 lbs and now 8 months later my weight is 228 lbs! So I recommend anyone who is suffering with obesity should definitely call Dr.Billy!

Dr Billy has been the best from the moment I first met him at a seminar 7 years ago. He explains the various surgeries in detail and covers what the patient has to put into it to make it all work. Not only that, his practice supports all of this with pre surgical testing available right there, nutritional and pyschological counseling available right there, and he even has trainers come in daily to do work outs with those who are interested. All of this at one, easy location. Besides that he, his PA and his nurses provide the most amazing after care by really coaching patients through the weight loss process- cheering their successes and helping them analyze their failures so they can and will improve.
The aftercare is incredible, he is a highly skilled surgeon andhis bedside manner can't be beat. This is definitely a 5 star paractice!
The only negative I can even come up with is sometimes getting appointments takes a little longer than you want. But that is ONLY because he sees everyone as frequently as they want so it is worth waiting an extra couple of days.
All of this is obviously my personal experience coupled with what I have heard from other people.Each of us is different and have different needs.

I went for my consult with Dr. helmuth Billy on Nov 30th, 2010 and I am having surgery on Sat Dec 11th 2010. He impressed me from the beginning with his knowledge and I liked that he was very to the point. He does not sugar coat it. So far I would highly recommend him and his stats are wonderful!!! He is really big on patient education and really cares about you. I was so very comfortable with him and his bedside manner... I would not have wanted another surgeon, he was amazing in my book!!!!!

His office staff is good as well. Sometimes they seem a bit overwhelmed and I am sure they are, but overall they are good! They are all helpful and informitive as well.

I had my surgery on Sat Dec 11, 2010 and Dr. Billy was wonderful!!!!!!!!! Once he got there all my fears were gone and he had a great smile and was ready to go....

The hospital I was at was Community Memorial in Ventura, CA. They were pretty good only one nurse had me yelling at her when she refused to change out my IV line. We worked it all out and I got a new line....

Dr. Billy is very polite, and very truthful and honest. I liked how he just layed it all down on the table.

My Impression of him, He's very caring and thoughtful. He's very passionate about his work.

The office staff were all very nice, and willing to answer every question you have. You can call into them at anytime if you come up with more questions later on after you leave.

Dr. Billy did my RNY surgery on 7/18/07.

Dr. Billy and his staff have provided me with excellent care and support from the very beginning.

He is a tough love kind of doctor and doesn't sugar coat the facts. He explained all the risks and benefits very clearly to me and doesn't hesitate to confront me in areas I need to improve on. Dr. Billy and his staff always make me feel important and that they truly care about my health and well being.

After care is critical, follow up appointments, blood work, support groups, exercise classes and nutritional counseling are all emphasized on a regular basis. My rating of Dr. Billy and his staff is a 10 out of 10.

Dr. Billy's surgical competence and bedside manner are great! I truly can't say enough about Dr. Billy and his staff, they have transformed my life! I am happier and healthier than I have ever been and thank God every day for bringing Dr. Billy and his staff into my life!

Strong believe in after care and helping make this a life change. Not a do as I say not as I do, talks about difficulties with weight that everyone has including himself.

First Impression; Very nice, well spoken, friendly, informative. I was impressed.rnrnImpression over time: Still working on it.rnrnOffice staff: well informed, very friendly, helpful and very busy. they are all greatrnrnLeast like: He has a very busy practice, sometimes hard to schedule appointment around my schedule, I had to flex my time to get my appointments, but I did want to get moving forward as fast as possible. I would have liked to had surgery already but still working on a date. rnrnFuture Patients: this is a wonderful practice, well informed, great staff, but all are very busy, and you have to be patient, and go through the proceedure, to get to the end result. rnrnAfter Care: Is strongly encourged, and provided at his pratice, I have been attending after care even before I have had surgery. seems to be a well informed program for all who want to use it. rnrnAftercare Sturcture: very good. presentations by staff, as well as question and answers answered, and sharing from all in attendance. Not enough days though, but scheduled well in advance so you can arrange your time to get to them. rnrnRisk Awarness: well presented in his pre siminar, at first office visit and in a well put together pamplet. rnrnI think Dr. Billy, is a very good DR. and surgeon and I would give him a very high rating. rnrnWhich is better: I will tell you after my surgery.

Dr. Billy is amazing. I met him at one of his Seminars about 18 months or so ago. I knew right there and then I wanted to TRUST him to be my surgeon. Opinion of him has not changed AMAZING! Dr. Billy's staff is wonderful very compassionate. His program is very structured and he wants to make sure you can make this commitment for a safe and successful weight loss. He is very open and upfront with the risks of surgery. I am praying for a April 1, 2009 Surgery Date. I feel like Dr. Billy is my angel sent from heaven to give me that second chance to use the tool he is giving me gastric bypass to get healthy and be able to enjoy my family more.

When I went to his informational seminar, Dr. Billy was the third bariatric surgeon in four years with whom I was trying to get the gastric-bypass procedure done, on the heels of protracted insurance battles each time. Now, he's the one who has gotten me through the process -- happily, healthfully and realistically.rnrnBig ups to Heather Jacobsen for her long-term help in dealing with insurance issues, and shout-outs to Rose, Becky, Sara, Nancy, Jessica, Sarah, the two Andrew's, Don and the rest of the nursing and office staff, for all of their help in making this journey a joy so far. I actually enjoy myself and find myself looking forward to seeing people when I go in for follow-up appointments or support group meetings.rnrnBut the best testimonials I can offer about Dr. Billy are probably included in a couple of posts I've made on ObesityHelp.com.rnrnI post them here without comment. Both, however, are full, accurate and heartfelt explanations of my experience with Dr. Billy, who was a key factor in one of the best, and worst, days of my life -- Aug. 6, 2008, my surgery date.rnrn---rnrnHi,rnrnDr. Billy was my surgeon, and I had total confidence in him.rnrnLike you, I saw and spoke to several doctors before choosing him. I made that decision because I knew someone who had undergone surgery with him before me, and he had had nothing but good things to say. Also factored in were my own impressions, and those of my mother, who had come along with me to meet Dr. Billy in a private consultation.rnrnThe thing that struck us most with Dr. Billy was the sense of confidence, reassurance and trust that we had in him, almost immediately.rnrnAsk him if he has had any deaths/complications under his watch. I did, and he was honest. I appreciated that beyond measure, and it gave me even more faith in him.rnrnLike it or not, he is very up-front with patients, and puts the burden and responsibility for this journey squarely on their shoulders. To give you an idea, at my first surgery follow-up with him, he walked into the exam room, looked at me, and immediately laid it on the line.rnrn\"Your metabolism is terrible, and you weren't doing that much wrong to begin with,\" he said.rnrn\"This surgery will help you, but you're going to have to work very hard, you're going to have to stick with the program, you're going to have to exercise, and you're going to have to be very disciplined. Or else, it's going to be very easy for you to become a fat woman again.\"rnrnUm, gee, thanks, Dr. Billy, I thought, laughing to myself a little. Oh well, so much for a little encouragement! And this was after a month in which I'd lost 23 pounds, and went in there feeling pretty pleased and proud of myself. I just had another meeting with him the other day, had lost 14 more pounds, and got another, similar warning/reminder.rnrnSo, he has stayed on me, and I'm glad of that. It has really brought home how much I really will have to work at this. Not that I didn't know that before, but my point is, he will confront you with it, and remind you constantly, that this process is largely on you.rnrnIn short, he's good for me, and good for all his patients -- maybe even more than he realizes.rnrnAnd that brings me to the one bad thing concerning him, if you could call it that. rnrnHe is extremely busy -- almost too much so, it sometimes seems. But, that could just be because I know that if every patient is like me, they'd like to have his ear and attention as much as possible. And it isn't, always. rnrnHe has a great staff, and he relies on those people a lot. And there are times when you may have to be OK with that if it is not an emergency situation.rnrnEveryone you see there, from Dr. Billy on down, pays attention to you when you’re with them, though. And I know some patients just take the busy-ness as an indication that a lot of people trust Dr. Billy with their care. Again, I think what will strike you most is his directness, and the sense of trust and reassurance that engenders. rnrnTo me, that was everything.rnrnEven when I had some last-minute nerves before my surgery, the deciding factor for me in going ahead was that, when it came right down to it, I trusted Dr. Billy to bring me through it, and he did.rnrnI had a smooth gastric bypass/gall bladder surgery, and have had an easy, successful recovery so far.rnrnMy only issue has been slow weight loss, thanks to a few factors, and, as I've tried to illustrate, we're working on that, confronting it head-on.rnrnI'd say that that's Dr. Billy’s way, and I like it.rnrn(Note: The above post was written by me on the ObesityHelp.com Web site on Nov. 3, 2008, in response to a request for information/opinions about Dr. Billy by another poster.rnrnThe post below was shared by me on the ObesityHelp.com Web site on Nov. 2, in response to another poster’s concern regarding the timing of her surgery during a time when her father was ill. Both posts have been edited, very slightly, here…for the better, I think, and the gist of each remains).rnrnTake a look at my surgery date – Aug. 6, 2008. I will never forget it, not only because it's the day I had my surgery, but because my father died in the early-morning hours on the day of my operation.rnrnHe died of his cancer/Parkinson's/heart problems a little after 1:30 a.m. With the support of, and at the insistence of, the rest of my family, I was in the operating room less than five hours later.rnrnBefore going under, I told Dr. Billy and his assistant, from the bottom of my heart, to please, please, take care of me. Not so much for myself, but because I really think my mother might have died, herself, had anything happened to me, too, within hours of my dad's death.rnrnThe rest of my family was actually more insistent and more certain that I should go through with my surgery than I was. I thought I should put it off, and nearly did, at the last minute. But then, my mom and siblings, all gathered around my dad's bed in the hospital, with him still lying there an hour after his passing, reminded me that, as much as I might have wanted to, there was nothing I could do for my father at that point.rnrnThey reminded me how long I'd been working toward this goal (three separate attempts in the past four years), and how it was something my dad had thought about and looked forward to, because he wanted to see me looking and feeling better, about both myself and my life.rnrnThat put me in tears, saying, \"But I wanted him to see me.\" rnrnThe other members of my family all smiled, and even laughed a little, at me and my unintended bit of vanity. Then, they all looked at me, and told me that I should go ahead with it, that I needed to go ahead with it, and that Dad would want me to do so.rnrnI decided they were right, and I have come to truly believe that. Delaying the surgery would have served no purpose. My mother did not accompany me to the hospital that morning. My sister-in-law, who actually had had an open gastric-bypass operation eight years earlier with another surgeon, pinch-hitted instead. But that was the only concession made to the events of the day.rnrnAnd, my sister-in-law, too, was impressed with Dr. Billy when he met to talk with her after my surgery had been completed. My mom, heart-broken at losing her husband of 55 years but still concerned about me, wound up visiting me in the hospital with other family members later that day. rnrnAfter 2 1/2 days in the hospital, I went home and stayed at my mom's house for the next seven days, at the end of which a memorial celebration for my dad had been scheduled. I had recovered from surgery relatively easily and well, and was glad to go with the rest of my family to share our memories of my father -- and to see all the 200 or so people in attendance in his honor.rnrnI believe my dad somehow knew what I'd decided about the surgery, and was fine and pleased that I'd gone ahead with it as we'd planned.rnrnThese days, I still think of him often -- every day, in fact -- and I like to think that he's been watching me, and watching over me, all during this journey. rnrnI can’t thank Dr. Billy and his staff enough for helping me through it.rnrn ---rnrnAs a postscript, let me note that, almost seven months later -- somewhat slow loser and relative lightweight though I am -- I've dropped 70 pounds so far.rnrnThat total, by the way, was EXACTLY what Dr. Billy had predicted in my first consultation that I would lose in the first six to seven months. His estimate was \"between 60 and 70 pounds.\"rnrnWell, apparently, it was no guess. The man knows his stuff.rnrnBut then, that was apparent to me almost from the start of this process.rn