"Jun04:
There is only one secretary that works with Dr. Singh. No one else does her job, if you call they tell you you have to wait for her. When my appointment to set a surgery date had to be cancelled because Dr. Singh was going to be out of the office, she set me up for a full month later. When I called to see about getting in earlier she told me that was impossible. I started to cry at the thought of having to wait another month and she said 'don't cry, that's not going to get you in any sooner' I asked to speak to the surgeon and she said 'that's not going to get you in earlier either so don't even try it' I deal with people everyday for a living and I was mortified at her callousness and down right rude tone of voice. Rather than risk her postponing my appointment further because I offended her in some way, I opted to wait out the month and go from there. Well, I got my date, but all I can say is this...
You better make sure that you have multiple copies of your paperwork. You call your insurance company yourself to make sure they get the proper paperwork and they get it in a timely fashion. She insisted she didn't have to fax it to both Empire and United even though I told her United wanted me to get a pre-determination. I told her this on 5/27. I reminded her on 6/4. It took until 6/8 to get her to fax it to them. She didn't fax it marked 'rush predetermination for 6/28 surgery'. When United didn't received it, they actually put me on hold to call her on my behalf. She wasn't in the office and NO ONE else could do her work. I called United the next business day and they told me that she refused to refax my paperwork. I called her myself and asked and she still refused to do it. When I started to cry out of frustration she said 'you don't have to cry about it' and when I used a more aggressive tone she said 'don't yell at me, its a 30 page fax and I'm not pulling your file and I'm not refaxing it, they can do their job and find it'. Finally, 2-3 days later when the original fax STILL hadn't shown up, I called and asked again...she still wasn't going to do it. I asked, what if the original really is lost? She said, well, a week before surgery, if approval hasn't come I start calling...so I said, well, you won't have to call if you'd just refax it to this special number now so they can walk it through the process like they told you they would. She said she would 'try to get to it' and they finally got the fax on 6/16 (for a 6/28 surgery).
She has little compassion and even less professional courtesy. I think that the way I was treated was absolutely dreadful. It's her job to make sure the paperwork is properly filed and approvals gotten in a timely manner. That's how the doctor gets PAID. I was terrified that because of her failure to submit the paperwork right away, then her stubborn refusal to refax it, I would have to cancel my surgery. What if she'd forgotten to fax something and I got denied? The paperwork delay was bad enough, but she behaves downright nastily if you question anything. Thankfully, I was approved on 6/18. I haven't gotten the letter yet, I can only hope that it's for the right procedure.
I don't want to scare anyone off of using Dr. Singh. This is just my take on his staff. You might have a completely different experience...and I hope that you do. As for Dr. Singh? He's a very good doctor. I would recommend him to anyone.
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5/04:
when I had my pre-surgery appointment with Dr. Singh I was really impressed. He was friendly and answered all my questions. He made me feel confident in both my decision for lapband and my choice of him as my surgeon
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I met with Dr Singh on 1/6; when I first went in to the examination room, a nurse weighed me, figured out my BMI. Then, Dr. Fallon (??) came in and I talked to him for over an hour. He was great...I was nervous at first because he was young and kinda of attractive, but he put me right at ease and was really informative. He went over my whole history and explained all the different types of WLS they could do. He answered my questions, and I had alot of them. He left me for about 10 minutes saying that he'd be back with Dr. Singh. When Dr. Singh came in, I was a little taken aback because he was more abrupt. At first he made me feel like I was looking for a 'easy' fix, but then I realized that he was really making sure I knew that I would have WORK to do and that the surgery was only a portion of the solution. He gave me a list of things I had to do, tests, exercise, counselling and such. I have to go back with all my 'proof' that I did my homework then he will put it all together to go to my insurance co and set a date. I think that overall my impression was favorable after I got past his abrupt manner-he also looked really tired, red-eyed, so I wrote his manner off as him having a bad day. "
