"1/27/03 I have not met him yet, I had my visit with my pcp today and she gave me a referrel to him. I will write more when I know anything.
2/6/03 I talked to Dr.McConnel's office and found out they don't have any consult appointments open until June and they won't let you schedule an appointment until you have gone to a seminar. They don't even have appointments for the seminars until May! So, I told them to send me the information on signing up for that and I still have not received anything from their office.
Then I checked out the statements on this board from Dr. Flanagan's patients who were very impressed and happy with him. I read that he was the President of The American Society for Bariatric Surgery (ASBS)1999-2000, he has done more than 1500 WLS and has been a surgeon for 25 years, so I am going with him now. I called and talked to his office in Eugene and found out that I can get a consult as soon as March and if your insurance approves you, you can get surgery within a month or two. I asked them to send out the paperwork, I got it in two days. That is a good sign. They send out an information book that tells about each step of the process of the surgery so you can be prepared with questions when you go to the consult. They also include a support group schedule so you can meet people that have gone through it and share your concerns. He sends the paperwork for you to fill out for insurance and includes very explicit instructions on how to fill it out. He also states in the letter that you do not have to convince him in such detail that you need bariatric surgery if you are morbidly obese, however, the sad fact is that you have to prove you are "sick enough" to the insurance company. So, that must be why he is such a stickler for detail. The surgeon's office requires you to fill out all the paperwork for medical history, insurance, diets you have been on, a copy of your medical records for the last 5 years and any surgeries you have had before they will even make an appointment for a consult. I got all the paperwork filled out and sent it in the next day. I made a copy of everything I sent them just in case it gets lost. I figure, that way, it won't get lost. (It never does if you are prepared for it, hehe). I sent it registered mail with a signed label to be returned to me to know when and if they got it. They received it 2/5/03. So, now I am waiting on the surgeon's office to call me to make an appointment for my consult. They have to go through all the paperwork to make sure it is completely filled out and there are no mistakes because they want the insurance to approve it on the first try. I will update when I hear anything from them.
2/27/03 My insurance approved my consult, so I called the office to let them know the authorization number and tell them how long it was good for. (My insurance only authorizes things for a specific time frame.) I was a little put off by the fact that when I called to talk to the woman that makes the appointments and is the surgeon's assistant, she asked me to hold, then passed me off to someone else and wouldn't even talk to me. She had the other woman tell me she was still looking over the paperwork and would call when they had gone through it all. She also said they would call back within 7 days. So, I had to give my insurance information to the other woman to give to her in a message. It bugged me because it was like she couldn't even take one minute to bother with me. She has been friendly before, maybe she is just too busy? I will update when I know anything else.
3/8/03 Well, they didn't call me back, surprise, surprise. I am going to call them on Monday. I'll update if I find out anything new.
I realize I have never written about my visits, so I guess I better get that down. He didn't seem gruff like some people said, although he did seem to want to talk about himself a lot, which I felt wasted time and is one reason he is so behind with his appointments. Maybe he wants to get to know you, but doesn't really seem to care about what you have to say. :) My husband and I sat around a long time while he does 5 different things during my appointment time. I think if he scheduled to talk to me and nothing else, he could be done in less than an hour, but the way it is set up, we were there for over 3 hours. I didn't have many questions because I have researched everything so much. He only does open surgery, no lap. He is very knowledgeable about his business. His staff is very friendly when you are there in person. He has a very structured aftercare program that spells everything out exactly. No guessing here! He told me the risks and asked if I had questions about them. The doctor did not get my insurance letter written for around 3 weeks, but finally got it in.
11/04/03
Well, I finally got my surgery on 10/08/03. Dr. Flanagan did an excellent job. I had no complications at all. I had my surgery on Wednesday and left the hospital on Saturday. He comes to see you every morning and evening you are in the hospital to check on you. He makes you feel like you are doing everything wrong, but when he saw me on the last day he told me I had been an excellent patient, so maybe he just doesn't want you to get too lax in your efforts??? His staff is very nice and his nurse came by to see how I was doing one day too. He said he is not going to accept TriCare any more because they don't pay enough, and kind of made me feel guilty about my insurance, but I would rate him an excellent surgeon. I always think it is better if you can have both great surgical competence and bedside manner, but I would definately say that surgical competence is the most important. All statements made are my personal opinion about my personal experiences. I will not be updating this page anymore, I will post any updates to my profile. "
"The nurses and aides were very nice and helpful. They didn't tell me all I was supposed to do though. The doctor would tell me I was supposed to be doing things I wasn't doing and I felt this was the nurses job. They were very good about helping with anything I asked for and went out of their way for me. It did take a little while sometimes for them to come to the room when I called, but they always came. I felt it was a very good hospital compared with others I have been in."
"I don't think she deals with a lot of WLS stuff, but I told her I wanted to see a bariatric surgeon and she gave me a referrel and checked everything I wanted her to check and listened to everything I had to say. She was nice and seemed interested in helping me any way she could."
