"DISCLAIMER: This is just MY opinion and experience. Yours may be completely different.
Excellent pr-op and surgery itself. Post-op HORRIBLE. I had to be very self-motivated to get anything out of this. I really feel let down.
Dr. Oh is an excellent surgeon with a great reputation and success rate. He is rated a Surgeon of Excellence and the hospital is a Center of Excellence.
What I liked about Dr. Oh is that he is very knowledgeable, and has a lot of pre-op requirements such as education and tests. His education is MUCH better than the hospital's and really answered all my questions before I even had a chance to ask, from dangers of surgery to cost of supplements post-op to info about sweeteners and types of protein.
He can be abrupt and matter of fact--if you want someone to hold your hand and reassure you and cater to your emotions, he's not the one. But surgical competence was much more important than bedside manner for me. Besides, he really is very funny and certainly a nice enough person. He did make sure all my questions were answered, he did make sure I understood my pre-op and post-op requirements (he made me write it down as he said it after I'd already had tons of training and then had me read it back to him).
He is also very reasonably priced. Current "special" is $12,000 for lap band including all hospital fees and 2 fills. The only extra costs were the pretests, most of which would have been covered by my insurance if it hadn't run out just before I had them. They probably came to about $2000. However, they didn't tell me that if I had sleep apnea, I would end up in the ICU which would cost me another $6000, even though I was only in there a few hours. I knew ahead of time I had sleep apnea and didn't need to be in ICU. I could have brought my CPAP which would have helped but it wasn't even suggested and it didn't really even occur to me.
I got my surgery date quickly and when I had to postpone due to a family emergency, I got a new date just a few days away.
I am concerned that Dr. Oh does too many surgeries, particularly in one day. But the biggest problem is despite all the pre-op talk and education there was NO follow through. I had to have my fills done under the flouroscope because my port is deep due to my extreme morbid (super) obesity. These cost $500 a pop NOT included in the "2 free fills" paid for ahead of time. They can only be done at the hospital and there is only one person who does them and he only works one day a week. His schedule is not known until the Friday before that week. This made it very difficult to schedule and I had to keep calling and calling to get the office to finally make the appointment. There was no follow-up with me to see if I was doing all right, going to meetings or needed another fill. I had to really hound them to get anything accomplished.
The clinic really pushed support groups pre-op, but they aren't very convenient or frequent. I'm having to find others not affiliated with the hospital.
An example: I had an ER visit one Thursday night while visiting my daughter and there was some concern about sepsis because I had pain and was running a fever. The ER doc reached him Friday morning and he insisted I return home for an MRI. I was 45 min from a major city but 4 hours from his hospital. He and the ER doc said I needed to drive home immediately. I was safe to drive home 4 hours but not to go to a different city 45 min away where my mother could meet me and drive me back home so I wouldn't do it alone (it was a barren stretch of highway.) I had to sign myself out against Dr's orders since I felt it was safer to meet my mom than drive home alone. Either way I was to contact Dr. Oh when I got back to Seattle. But I was unable to reach him and I did not get a call back until the following Tuesday. By then the problem was resolved. I could have visited my daughter after all. If I had been truly ill, I would have had to pay for another ER visit in order to be treated. It would have been better to stay in the nearby city after all.
Other negatives are minor: his office is really too small as is the parking lot. Also, as great as the education was, I don't think I fully grasped how horrible the loooooong liquid diet portion would be, how hungry I would be even after surgery before I could have protein again. But I think that is more my fault. I also didn't get to see him for my one week follow-up but the other doctor in the office.
Pre-op and surgery I rate him 4.5 out of 5 stars. Post-op I rate him 1 out of 5."
