Forest Park Medical Center Hospital

I had laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery with Dr. Nicholson on 10/27/09 at Forest Park Medical Center. I was in the hospital for 3 days. This was by far the best hospital I have ever stepped foot in! I never ran into someone who didn't want to be there helping out the patients. I had the best nurse, his name was Bryan. He was AWESOME!! I would definitely recommend this place to everyone. ALL of the nurses, techs, and Dr.'s were very courteous and nurturing, but they made sure everything got done!

It was clean, comfortable, and nurses were readily available. I did not have to wait for any requests.

I had a revision to gastric bypass at your facility on 8/10/2009. Dr Kim was my surgeon and I am happy the results so far.

I am not happy with you hospital and am on a mission to expose your unsatisfactory care and billing practices to other potential patients who are considering surgeons who use your facility.

About the service you provided:
The service was unacceptable and was understaffed throughout my stay.
My surgery scheduled for 9:30 AM didn't happen until 3 or 4 PM. There were no updates during this time and we didn't know what was going on.
I finally got to my room around 7 PM, fortunately the nurse the first night was great, she was a temp!
The rest of the stay I had issues getting pain meds, had to go pick it up at the nurses station a couple of times after waiting an hour or more.
I went over 24 hours (From Tuesday morning until Wed Morning before discharge) without getting the bandage changed on my drain port even though I was dripping when walking down the hall and asked several time to get it changed.
I didn't get me morning tray on Wednesday my discharge day, finally got the nurse to bring some broth after an hour or so.

For this my insurance has been invoiced over $151K and has now paid you the staggering amount of $148,926.99 with more pending. I have called in and talked with your billing folks and have an itemized statement of services, guess you can put anything you want on an invoice.

This proceedure not considering the revision which took no longer time and required no additional stay is listed for an all inclusive cash price of $19,000 on Dr Kim's website. I would have expected a small additional cost for the revision and the 2 hernias that were repaired during the process still under the 3 hour time quoted for the standard proceedure and 3 day typical stay for the standard proceedure.

There were no complications, no trama team, no ICU, nothing to justify this horrific charge or payment from my insurance insurance company.

I am writing this to inform you I have begun my mission to inform everyone I can about your practices. I realize you have discovered this loophole in the insurance system and are capitalizing on it by not participating with any insurance providers. I must say this is a pretty sweet deal and the sad thing is I am not sure the insurance companies care. If I do not get something done this proceedure will end up costing well over $160K which is horrendous. I have several friends who have had this proceedure and typically the hospital is paid around $10K for this procceedure, infact with medicare it is around $8K.

I have reported this activity to the fraud group at United Healthcare, the Texas Attorney General, Senator Sam Johnson (also copied on this message), President Obama in support of healthcare reform, for starters. I am also completing reviews on every website I can find where your facility is referenced and also local forums and discussion groups in the area with interest in obesity surgery.

I am not sure what to do next, this is having a negitive affect on my health and mental wellness at this point. If this had settled for any amount within reason I wouldn't have looked back but I cannot just let this go unprotested.

I have talked to you office staff without success.

Forest Park is a great hospital. Everything is new and state of the art and the staff are all very helpful and attentive.

it was surprisingly dirty in the reception area, but we were there monday morning; cleaning crew may not have arrived

It is a new and very up to date. I hade a problem with how long i had to wait for many things. Some of the nurses were better then others. Im sure i could have had a better experience.

My records was incorrect, post op took 5 nurses to put in IV 6 trys and this has never happened to me before. The Post op nurse was horrible! She would not tell me what medicine she was giving me. Then she wouldn't talk to me at all after I keep telling her I was still im pain. She never ask me what kind of pain she just told me what pain I was having. She keep saying that you are hurting as a result of gas. I told her no I wasn't so she stoped tolking to me. This was the worst porfessional care I have ever experianced in my life.

Very good hospital experience considering I didn't feel that good.

Nurses slow to response, but otherwise very nice. Did not get a bill for anything after my visit.

Very posh, new hospital!