On Thursday October 18^th I went back to Tri-State Bariatrics. I met with Jody [NP], Lisa [dietician] & Stacy [patient navigator]. This was the second time I visited Tri-State Bariatrics. I first went to one of their fast-track\accelerated Wednesday sessions in April 2011. I originally was really impressed by the staff their and decided back in 2011 that Tri-State would be my “new” WLS “home“. The staff was very friendly and caring and seemed genuine. They didn’t seem like they were only being nice because they were being paid to be, if you know what I mean. And since I am a self-pay\cash patient, I was grateful that I found a program within 45 minutes of my home that wasn’t going to cost me an arm & a leg to get healthy.

Let me back up a little. In December 2009 I started with another surgeons office out of Westchester. I really liked the surgeon and two of the lab techs in his office. Quite honestly, the rest of the staff was a bit uppity and had “Westchesteritis”. Meaning they were a bunch of snots. I can say this as I am originally from Westchester, myself J I went all the hoops, had my clearances done. Had a surgery date scheduled {12/14/10 - a year to the day that I first met the surgeon] and then I started to have second thoughts… Not about the surgery itself; but about the cost of the surgery. If I lost my job for whatever reason, or my company continued to downsize in the NY area and reduced it’s number of remote employees - I could stand to lose my home because I would not be able to make my loan payments on top of my other living expenses. These were very real concerns I needed to entertain before I started to hand over checks that amounted to $30,000 when it was all said and done. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t. I wanted too, but I couldn’t be that selfish. There was just entirely to much at stake. I could not lose my house. So after being a little down in the eating dumps for the first part of 2011, I decided to look around at other local\regional practices and see what their self-pay fee was. And one of the practices I checked out happened to be Tri-State Bariatrics. This wasn’t the first time I had heard of Tri-State, though.

In the summer of 2010, I was in a local medical building for a doctor appointment and I saw a printed sign that said something like ‘Tri-State Bariatrics this way’ with an arrow point around the corner. I pointed the sign out to my Mom and said hmmm, I need to google them and check them out. But at the time their site only said that they performed the RNY & the Lap-Band. So I wasn’t interested. But when I was doing my research in Spring 2011 Tri-State’s website had a blurb on it indicating that they were now performing the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy! I was so excited that they were now doing the VSG! So I called to find out a little about their program and what their fee was and it was reasonable, so I went to a fast-track\accelerated Wednesday session. Then as it always kinda happens in my life\family, other stuff gets in the way and the idea of surgery got tabled.

Then in the middle of the Summer of 2011 I heard from the Westchester surgeons sister program that goes out of Putnam. They gave me a price of $16,000. This fee was supposed to be all inclusive. But my life is what it is and I couldn’t make a move at that time. On September 18^th I decided to email Putnam and see if their fee was still the same. The lady there called me back the following day and tried to tell me it was, but she said our last self-pay sleeve ran $20,.000. So to figure “at least” that. Yeah, ok.  She said she would have the woman at the surgeons office give me a call to start coordinating things.

So with that so not helpful information from the other office, I called Tri-State and set-up an appointment. I let them know that I had been a former patient and had started the process with another practice and rethought it due to the cost, and with them and life got in the way, but that if their fee was still the same or still “reasonable”, I would like to come back and start again. Since I had gone through so much of the process already, they let me know I didn’t need to attend an information session, which was great! With my grandmothers health issues, it is hard to get out, as care needs to be coordinated, so that was wonderful. I had my first appointments scheduled for October 5^th, but I needed to reschedule that as my Grandmothers new at home doctor was coming for an appointment that day. So I rescheduled to October 18^th. I have been in something of a more positive head space since I scheduled my appointment. Although I was very disappointed I needed to reschedule.

When I went to my appointment on Thursday, I was having such a bit of anxiety about going to the appointment. Why, I don’t know as this was really my third time trying this. I had never had anxiety about it all before. But just like when my Mom and I visited Tri-State in April 2011 the staff was friendly and personable. They really helped to put me at ease. The appointments went very well. I am already scheduled for my psych clearance with Dr. Allison, my second dietician appointment with Lisa and my meet and greet with Dr. Weiss. I am also scheduled for my UGI series and I have an appointment scheduled with my Gastroenterologist to setup my endoscopy. I just need to call on Monday to see about setting up my appointment for my blood draw - as the first two labs I’ve tried won’t take me [one is nonpar with my insurance and the second lab is part of a medical group and since the ordering doctor isn’t a part of their group and neither in my PCP, I can’t have my blood drawn there.] My last, and biggest, hurdle to clear will be my cardiac clearance. I will be reaching out to my cardiologists office in December to setup an appointment the week of Christmas. I’ll have my echo & EKG then. But I know he will make me go for a MUGA scan to get me cleared. That is what he did the last time and since I am, currently anyway, a good 60 pound heavier and not exercising, I don’t foresee him clearing me easily. Dr. N. said my echo was shadowy so he wanted to make sure I had good cardiac out put, etc. Hence the MUGA, and my ejection fraction was with normal limits, but that was in October 2010. So yeah, a-repeating-we-will-go. The end of December will give me some time to get my act back together and I will have lost some weight by then and will have made friends, once again, with the treadmill. I just hope my insurance will approve the MUGA scan without to much hassle. At the time I originally had the test performed the insurance I had didn’t require auth for that procedure, but the insurance I have no does…blah! And the company that authorizes that tests can be a bunch of stinkers at times!!!! So I really hope I don’t have a hard time with it. It is bad enough my insurance is a High Deductible Health Plan with a $2000 deductible and a $2000 co-pay AND THEN stuff is covered at 80%. @@ And WLS is a strict written exclusion from my companies insurance policy.

I am excited to be moving forward, again, with this process. I really do believe that everything happens for a reason. I believe that the other stuff with the other office and at the other times I was looking into this didn’t work out for a reason. It stinks that I need to pay for all of this stuff again, testing wise, since I have that lovely HDHP insurance, but oh well. It is what it is.

After my appointment, I went to Wal-Mart, got my Flu shot and picked up some of the supplements I need to start taking. I am excited again. I was in a really good place, for me anyway, two years ago. I had lost down to 330 pounds and things were looking like it might work out. And then I just wasn’t [in a good place] and then it just all sorta fell away and I stopped caring and I started to eat, and eat poorly and not exercise. And it all fell to hell. And I gained the 60 pounds, and then some, back. I know I have lost weight because in the summer I was just getting a big “E” on my scale  Then after I called Tri-State and started to be conscious of the volume of crap I was putting into my mouth, I was actually able to weigh!

Going back to the Westchester\Putnam people for a minute…Needless to say the last time I heard from them was in the middle of September, and here we sit a month later and I haven’t heard boo out of either the surgeons office in Westchester, or from the Hospital liaison in Putnam. FFFFFFF  So last night I “officially” broke-up with them. It has definitely been a long time coming. The "relationship" has been over for quiet sometime, I just couldn't bring myself to take that last "final" step.  But, FFFFFFFF that I'm done playing games. I know I deserve better.  I deleted the doctor’s phone number out of my cell phone, I deleted any links pertaining to either Westchester or Putnam out of my favorites, I deleted the phone number of a support group leader that had ties to the Westchester group [when I went, it was the guy who co-ran the group and provided the space, the leader, my mom and me. And the “leader” was rude to my Mom because she had questions. Um, later for you lady!] My final move in “breaking-up” with my old surgeons office was deleting my review of them off of here! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF them, indeed!! They don’t deserve my money! The surgeon may be excellent, but his staff does not know how to treat people and they play a game of price gouging. So that office has reached the status of those “Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”.