I had my consult (very long)

[Guest guest]

Well, finally after months of jumping through hoops and then waiting,

I had my consult with Dr. Scholten today. And I'm happy to report

that my anxiety was unnecessary.

First I had to watch a pretty generic WLS video, which was totally

boring. Then the nurse (Renae, they have a new nurse who is " helping

out " Dr. Scholten and Kay, and she's really nice) weighed me on

one of those BMI scales and took my vitals. On their scale I weighed

in with a BMI of 43. And despite the fact that I had taken my BP

meds 90 minutes earlier, my BP was 163/97 and my pulse was racing at

126 bpm!

Then I was put in another exam room to wait on Dr. Scholten. The

wait was only about 15 minutes. When he came in, he had a resident

with him that he's teaching and asked my permission to have the

resident in on the consult. I said sure. The fact that he was a

cutie had no bearing on my decision, I swear! ;o)

Anyway, I told Dr. Scholten before he had a chance to go into his

explanation of the surgery that I had done months of research and

wanted the DS. He said that it wasn't his job to convince me one way

or the other which surgery to have, he'd explain both the DS and the

RNY and after that my decision was my decision... so he did just

that.

As Renae predicted in our previous thread on Dr. Scholten, despite my

asking directly, he wouldn't be pinned down to absolute numbers for

the length he will make the common channel. He said he wouldn't be

able to tell until he got in and measured as the final common channel

length is a percentage of the total. All in all he gave me a very

balanced presentation on both surgeries, their upsides and

downsides. The sense I get from how he explained the two surgeries

to me, and this is completely inferred by me -- he never said this in

as many words -- is that he prefers the RNY surgery for the majority

of his patients because, by it's very nature, it more or less

enforces patient compliance. He said, without saying, that he is

only comfortable doing the DS on patients who really understand the

DS and its long-term implications and have the self-discipline to do

the proper follow up maintenance with regard to nutrition and

supplements.

I guess I met his standards because by the end of the consult the RNY

papers were all tucked away and he told me he'd love to do the DS on

me if I can get it approved. Then he grinned like a kid and said he

likes doing the DS, that it's a " fun sugery. " Yup, the man

definitely loves his work. He said he'd do more DS, but he's found

that insurance companies are still too resistant to approving it.

I also found out he trained with Dr. Hess, which was VERY

reassuring. Bottom line is I _like_ Dr. Scholten. He's very

personable, has a nice sense of humor and projects a genuine concern

for his patients and wants them to do well. But when doing the DS I

think he may tend to err on the side of caution when deciding common

channel lengths because, as he said, the only way to fix the

excessive malabsorption if the common channel is too short is a

revision.

Then I spoke with Amy, who is in charge of battling with the

insurance companies, and she told me that they use the exact same

codes when submitting the DS for insurance approval that Dr. Hess'

office does. She also said that UHC is usually very quick to get

back with a yes or no.

At this point my LOMN submission is on hold. I got my COBRA letter

from UHC... $700 a month to continue coverage under COBRA for me and

my two kids. So... I have to come up with $1,400 for the December

and January premiums and send it off to UHC before we can submit my

LOMN and then pray for approval. Then, if I'm approved (please God),

I have to get the surgery done before April; that's the beginning of

the next plan year and when changes to the policy are made. It would

be my luck for them to revise it to exclude WLS.

Anyway, there is waaaaaaaaay more than you wanted to know about my

consult. ;o)

I may not post often, but when I do I sure make up for it by packing

it into long posts, don't I? LOL Thanks for reading all through

this.

Grand Rapids, MI

BMI 43

Dr. Scholten

On hold pending COBRA payments