Guest guest Posted July 28, 2000 Report Share Posted July 28, 2000 Hi, We are overwhelmed. Our database of preop patients contains over 1500 patients and we get 5-10 completed new patients applications per day. I get over 500 emails per day and I simply cannot answer all of them. Even with the expected addition of three new staff members and operating in two rooms during the day our office is overwhelmed with new patients. While this seems good at first blush, I am afraid that I can no longer keep up good quality care that I want to provide. I have to use some method of decreasing my patient load. To try and decrease our patient load we have already stopped doing elective revisions of other types of failed weight loss surgery and have become stricter in relation to our weight and age limits. In the past we had taken out a few small local advertisements and we have pulled all of these to try and decrease new patient appointments. We still have many more patients than I could ever possibly take care of. I have reviewed my practice in detail and I have talked with Debbie about what she does and what she likes and doesn't like about the job. Clearly the most time consuming and unpleasant part of the job is dealing with the insurance companies. Therefore, our tentative plan is to move over the next month to no longer accept insurance payment for the surgery. We could still provide the preop letters to patients and help patients file for insurance reimbursement post procedure but our efforts in this area would be limited to submitting the bill to the company. This would eliminate a tremendous amount of frustration and paper work. The ridiculous amount of time and effort spent on hold and trying to address the Byzantine rules and regulations dreamed up by insurers would be eliminated. I would be interested in advice and suggestions about this plan. I recognize that many patients will be prevented from having the surgery, at this time but I can only do so many operations and I do not want to compromise the quality of the care that I provide. Please give me your thoughts and feelings about this very difficult issue. RR Rutledge, M.D., F.A.C.S. The Center for Laparoscopic Obesity Surgery 4301 Ben lin Blvd. Durham, N.C. 27704 Telephone #: Fax #: Email: DrR@... ************************************************ Please Visit our Web site: http://clos.net ************************************************ Durham Regional Hospital: Also, Please consider joining the Mini-Gastric Bypass Mailing List at http://www.onelist.com MiniGastricBypass is a general discussion of the Mini-Gastric Bypass ( http://www.onelist.com/community/MiniGastricBypass ) Talk with lots of other Pre and Post Op patients and friends. Keep up to date on the latest news about the Mini-Gastric Bypass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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