Out of state surgery

I am contemplating out of state surgery, but the problem is that the local surgeons here will not fill for a patient they did not do the surgery for. Is this common? If so, do you travel (for me it would be by air) for each of the fills and appointments? How often?

I am looking at the doctor in Colorado, as that is about $8,000 cheaper than my local surgeons. I think I could go there a few times and still be money ahead.

Thank You.

I live in Maryland and went to Dr. Kirshenbaum in Colorado. In my area there are a number of doctors who will do fills for patients who had surgery out of state. I don't know where you live, but if you live far from Colorado you can probably find someone in a neighboring state, or otherwise closer than going back to Colorado.

On the other hand, Dr. Kirshenbaum only charges $15 for fills for his patients, so you probably break even financially just going back to him. Of course, it can take a lot of time to fly to Colorado. But stricly from a financial perspective it's probably not too expensive to go back there for fills.

On thing you might try is to post a question on this forum asking:

"Anyone know any fill doctors in the state of XXXXX?" You might find that some options come up that you had not heard of.

Concerning your question how often you need to travel, this is an individual issue that no one can answer for you. Some people need a lot of fills, and even some unfills. Other people never need a fill at all if they have sufficient restriction after surgery. That is rare but it does happen. I'm one of those so far. I was banded on 1/17/07 and still have plenty of restriction with no fills yet.

If you tell me your city and state I'll look on my doc's fill list and see who is available for fills in your area.

I live in Fargo, North Dakota. Minnesota is just across the river from me, so that would work too. I know in North Dakota there are surgeons in Bismarck, Minot, Grand Forks, and Fargo.

I would even consider South Dakota, Sioux Falls, Aberdeen.

Thank you for looking. The surgeon I have seen in Fargo I do know will not fill for other surgeons.

NORTH DAKOTA.- Dr. Mike

Schmit

701-530-6000

Bismarck

ND

415.00 w/ and first visit..... 145.00 for visits afterwards

very good, They are just starting the Lap Band there

Christa Wells

I would go to the Mexican doc's websites, join their egroups and ask who everyone uses for fills in your area. This is from Dr. Aceves' boards.

Here is Ortiz' website, you can ask there too:

http://www.lapbandforum.com/index.php?showforum=4

And check out this link:

http://www.fillcentersusa.com/locator/index.php

We WILL find you a doc, if these don't work let me know. I'll help.

Hi there. I went out of state for my band also with no doctors here that do fills. It is about 4.5 hours and I have to do this all in one day. It will be hard but it is a must. I hope that within 6 months there will be someone here at home that do them. I get 4 free then after that I will find someone closer to home I hope. I hope that I will not need more than 4!!!!!!

Good luck.

Wow, I was skeptical about posting my question, but I am soooo glad I did. Thank you for all the information.

I told my husband today that I AM going to do this. I did all the preliminary things like supervised diet, psych evaluation, yada yada yada...I want to do this before they make me re-do all of that.

Thanks again!

Marjon, just curious, but living in MD, what was your reason for going to Colorado? I had my lap band done in MD.

I used Dr. Aceves in Mexico who was mentioned earlier. Before surgery we set up a fill Dr. closer to me, but due to living in a rural area with no lap band surgeons even in my state, it was still a 10 hour round trip. So we also set up an appointment and met with a local oncologist (they are used to accessing ports) in case I had an emergency here.
I know many Dr.s will not fill a band placed in Mexico. Be sure you point out that is not your case. If it is an American placed band they look at it differently. People move, they need follow up---seems like these Dr.'s would realize this!
Good Luck!!!
Kat

My main reason for starting to look outside Maryland was price. The doctors I was referred to charged about $25,000. I'm self-pay so that was a big problem. So I started doing some research on this forum and found a few docs around the U.S. for under $15K. I also considered a Mexican doc and would have gone that route but I was trying to avoid it because people said it was hard to find after care and fill doctors if you were banded in Mexico. Eventually I ran across mention of Dr. Kirshenbaum in Aurora, CO near Denver. His price was $9950. People seemed to like him and he had a lot of experience in laparoscopic surgery in general, even though at that point he had only done about 60 lap bands. Another thing I liked about Dr. K is that he does not require psych tests and support groups and all that paternalistic stuff. I just felt like I was capable of making my own decisions about my life and health and I did not want to jump through hoops to prove to some stranger that I was sane enough to meet their standards. So, I climbed on top of a tall building with 12 machine guns ... just kidding. Anyway, the rest is history, so to speak. I had the surgery on 1/17.

Mark...

I agree with you about all the prebanding stuff, psych evals, etc. That is one of the reasons I went to Mexico. After I did all my research, picked a doc, made the decision... after all that I called and scheduled surgery for six days from then. Did it and am glad I did.

A surgeon should have at least a couple of hundred bands under their belt before you let them do surgery on you. Reason is, the technique is everything. There is a learning curve to banding people and you don't want to be part of the curve. After the surgeon has done 100 or more bands then his mistakes start showing up at his office and he has to take them back for repairs. Slips, erosions, etc.

The band has to be placed just right, not too high and not too low. Sutures have to be just right, not too tight and not too loose, not too many or two few sutures, etc. This only comes with experience and learning from your mistakes.

There is another side of having a band placed in you in Mexico. To start with I love Mexico as a tourist and I am sure they are very experianced at placing bands. The problem arises when like my father who died from a massive staph infection from having a hip replacment in the States. Now I know that can happen anywhere but because he had dental work done years ago in Mexico, they blamed the whole thing on that! Don't get me wrong i'm not planning on suing anyone, but say you were in a bad car accident and needed lifetime aftercare, the ins. + lawyers would blame any problem on the fact that you had surgery in Mexico.Just a thought, Sunnysea Also alot of erosion case's stem from Dr's in Mexico doing an aggressive fill because you can't come back as often.

Do you have any links for stats on that?

I agree that you want to have an experienced surgeon, that is for sure. But I am not sure I agree that all the experience has to be with the lap band. My doctor is a very experienced laparoscopic surgeon who has done about 10,000 laparoscopic procedures and pioneered some important techniques and taught them to hundreds of other surgeons. Even though at the time I went there he had only done about 60 lap bands, I still felt pretty confident about his experience.

BubbleButt, A surgeon here in WI. had said that was his finding and the reason he doesn't take patients from Mexico, ofcourse he won't take me for follow-up either! Also I have read it here under [Complications] seems to be more with the bands done years ago. Maybe my former Dr. said this because his only interest was my money????? It made since at the time. Sunnysea