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Post surgery thoughts
BeenThere
Thanks. One of the things I learned over years is that when you ask the insurance, the hospital or the primary care physician, what they refer you to depends on who they know. Hospital tries to fill up gaps for surgeons and promote them (and vice versa). Insurance does exactly the same. They refer you to anyone on their list (Aka network) and the list is the exact same thing you see on the website. A PCP referring to a surgeon is Scratch-my-back-and-I-will-scratch-yours type stuff. A dentist told me 5 years ago that I had a lesion on tongue that urgently needed to be checked and a referral to so and so oral surgeon was given. I asked if it could be cancer or what? Dentist says yes it could be and that’s why it should be checked.I ignored her since that so called lesion has been in my mouth since age 6 or whatever. In my third of fourth visit the oral surgeon name changed for recommendation and I asked why. No answer. After 5 years I never went to the oral surgeon and she keeps telling me I needed to still go. In one of those cleaning visits in her dental practice I met another dentist this time who said he could not even find any lesion. Huh? So that’s how it goes. After 5 years if I had cancer it should have progressed to stage 5 by now. LOL. It is all about money. Insurance never worries if you are feeling good or bad. Their business is to make money. If you are well, they say “yeah we told you.” and if you feel worse, “yeah sometimes it happens.” You are one in a million. Who cares? It is not their pain to suffer.
There are some grocery shops like Chinese and Mexican stuff sellers. If you go and ask the owner if such and such vegetable is fresh or when it came to shop, he would say “Oh it came right today, take it and it tastes the best.” That alone is a red flag. He is trying to get rid of that stuff.
Talk to people, did you ask for a reference from one of the patients who had surgery with this very doctor who operated on you? General surgeon is different from specialist hernia surgeon.
I often regret spending more money. For example if I spend 55 cents on bananas at Kroger and I find they are 44 cents in Aldi I beat myself for wasting money but when I went to Dr. Goodyear I spent money for plane tickets, hotel and all and NEVER REGRETTED it. Luckily I found that Dr. G is a specialist Hernia surgeon and has the skill. He never needed a Google search or scratch on his head to answer my questions. He has them right off his bat.
Before going to him I met two local guys here and my PCP all of whom confirmed that I had IH. I also knew since I had trouble during bowel movement and a bump was showing up. I did not like the local surgeon; but may be was good. I do not know. When I did not feel confident I decided not to go to him.