SURGEON'S AIRHEAD OFFICE STAFF

[LousPeachy 100]

My Surgeon's staff's inefficiency STILL never ceases to amaze me. Seminar and first meeting with WL Surgeon, CHECK! First of 4 sessions with NUT, CHECK! Knowing if the surgeon WILL DO surgery on me because of NonAlcoholic Cirrhosis liver damage, STILL no check there. A true case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. All it takes to know one way or the other is for the Liver MD to get my records to the WLS so he can review them. Simple right? WRONG WRONG WRONG!

Call after call to the Surgeon, week after week, after being more than patient and being told something different each time I called, I am well beyond frustration. No we don't have the records. Yes we do have the records. Dr hasn't had time to review them but he will soon. No we don't have the records. I think you get the picture.

Then my husband stepped up to the plate and started calling the surgeon himself. We FINALLY found out what the problem is. At first he was given the same runaround as I had been given. Then yesterday he spoke to someone who was able to tell him what the problem is....the Liver doctor hadn't sent the imaging records, just my last lab work and the records of my last office visit. The fault of the Liver guy right? WRONG AGAIN. The Surgeon NEVER REQUESTED those records! So, another call to the Surgeon when I get up, a wait for them to send the request and another 7-10 day wait for the Liver guy to send the imaging info, a wait for the doctor to review them and another wait for them to let me know the doctor's decision. There is so much else that has to be done pre-op that I don't intend to have done if there will be no surgery.

Has anyone else gone through this kind of thing? I would switch Doctors if this guy didn't have such a great reputation. With all the surgeries he has done, why does he, like so many other doctors, surround himself with such inefficient airheads! They either don't know what is required or as I suspect, they just don't care! If it didn't require so much walking that is difficult at this weight, I would pick up the papers myself and hand deliver them. My husband is legally blind so it would be almost impossible for him to navigate the hospital (where the Surgeon's office is) w/o me.

I have learned to be patient in the 67 years I have lived on this earth but these people would try the patience of Job!

[jane13 2,256]

I see and endocrinologist and if it wasn't for the fact that I like him, I would never go back. The staffing at the front desk is incompetent and I get irritated every time I go. I have BCBS and I pay more for each visit (30) than my hubby does (25). I have asked about why I get charged an extra 5 and got some BS story. Then hubby got charged 30, once, and he asked why now he understands why I complain about them. hubby says its because the girls like him better

I have seen the doctor for about 3 years and cant get them to correct my home phone number. I gave up after the 3rd time.

[UrsulasShadow 59]

I had to actually go into the office, sit in an exam room, and MAKE the scheduler call the nutritionist WHILE I listened, in order to get the paperwork straightened out. I had her put it on speakerphone so I could hear the conversation. The scheduler swore up and down that she had asked the nutritionist to fix the paperwork, but it was clear from the reaction of both that my 2 MONTHS of struggling with them to fix a simple mistake on the records had been ignored by the scheduler entirely. I was livid.

[ga_crystal 51]

I feel your pain. I had my surgery back in February of this year, 4 months ago. A couple weeks ago I was on my insurance website looking at all my claims from surgery. I noticed a claim from a 3rd party company for an "Assistant Surgeon"...well he tried to bill my insurance for around $8,900, HAHA! Well of course, my insurance has denied it for two reasons. Reason one being that he was an out-of-network surgeon, and two, they never pre-approved for an assistant surgeon to be in the room. So of course, I was really nervous and upset after seeing this and called my surgeon's office. His insurance coordinator stated that I did sign a piece of paper giving my permission for an assistant surgeon. This makes me beyond LIVID, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I never knew that they would be using an assistant. I called the insurance company and they stated that this is happening more and more because surgeons have figured out that if they call in a third party "assistant" they actually get a cut of their deductible as well. Guess who WONT be getting paid?? The assistant surgeon should have just stayed home that day, because he wont be getting a dime out of me.

[Djmohr 6,965]

I am not sure what it is but it is so very frustrating.

My 6 month wait went 9 months because of several people's inability to follow through. It took my nutritionist t help straighten it out but it took me over a month to figure out something was wrong.

First issue I had was I saw the psychologist who told me everything looked great and I would not to to do a recheck with him. His exact words were I would love to check in with you once your surgery is complete. He gave me no follow up instructions to set up an appointment.

I went through all 6 of my scheduled nut check ins and all other required appointments. I then asked her if we had everything we needed to submit to insurance. She asked if I had my follow up with the physcologist and I told her exactly what he told me. She even stated in his notes it wasn't clear but she didn't want me to get held up so she would follow up with him.

The next day I get a call and of course he would like to see me one more time. I was so angry because I could have had that appt done several months before. They told me he might be willing to just have a phone call with me. Of course they call me and he wants to see me and had no openings for 3 weeks. Was I pissed!

I finally get in to see him which was a complete waste of time and I actually called him on it. I had passed all my tests, what were his concerns. He simply wanted to provide some guidance on how to deal with eating out of boredom which I mentioned during my first visit. Ugh! Really you wasted another month for that!

So then I checked to maker sure they had everything and was told yes, they would be submitting my paperwork immediately. I was told it would probably be a few weeks before I heard anything and then once we got approval I would get an appointment with the surgeon and we would schedule surgery.

Stupid me, I waited 3 weeks and heard nothing. I called the doctors office and was told that my paperwork still had not been submitted and the person who does this was on vacation. I made them get me the Bariatric nurse on the phone so I could go off on someone for this nonsense.

She gets on the phone and mentions they are still missing one appointment with the nut. I happened to have a copy of all 6 visits and the progress I had made. I was again pissed and asked if they needed my copy, I could fax it, email or drive the 20 miles to get it to them.

They had me fax it. I did, and they said they were going to fax it into insurance that day.

Every time something like this happened I would spend the day crying because I was so sick at this point from kidney disease.

I got a call back about 4 hours after faxing my info over. The insurance company approved my surgery that same day and I finally got scheduled with the surgeon and got a surgery date.

I started the process on Dec. 26th and had my surgery on Sep. 29th.

Talk about ridiculous incompetence f just a couple of people. I love most of the people on my team but those few can sure make for a crappy experience.

[LousPeachy 100]

Thanks so VERY much for sharing all your experiences. It's comforting to know I am not alone in all this!

Nothing personal or offense intended towards ALL the young skinny pretty girls that work in doctor's offices. Not all of them operate this way. But I must admit I would rather walk into a office and see a bunch of hobbling old prunes like myself (that do the job they were hired to do) behind the desk than these young bumbling inefficient space cadets.

[LousPeachy 100]

Forgot to mention I called the Surgeon early this morning and told them what the problem was regarding my records (shouldn't this have been the other way around?). Of course they said they would and would be specific atating exactly what was needed. DH called them early afternoon to be sure they had done their job (they said they had) and also asked EXACTLY what they requested and their reply was "EVERYTHING". I guess they are getting sick of hearing from us and just want to get rid of us. My Liver doctor is simply going to LOVE the "everything" request but at this point I really don't care WHO is inconvenienced as long as I know if the Surgeon will do the surgery!

[LousPeachy 100]

Called liver doctor a bit ago. They did NOT intend to send imaging records to the surgeon. The request they received was to send ALL records and there are a lot of those. I had told the Surgeons staff to BE SPECIFIC. When I was told they requested all records, I should have taken them litterly.

Anywho, they are sending CT SCANS, BIOPSIES, and all other imaging reports. I THINK that is what Dr. Turnquest wanted in th

[LousPeachy 100]

In the first place! Hit send too soon, sorry. Now, I can't figure out why, when the request was made for ALL MEDICAL RECORDS the Liver guy did NOT intend to send imaging files. Am I missing something here?

Well, I will wait till next Friday to see if WLS people get the imaging files from Liver people. All this hassle is really getting to me. Beating a dead horse so to speak is incredibly frustrating.