I love my surgeon, but the office is so crazy busy I feel like I get blown off a lot. I have tests, never get the results (this is for my EKG, MRSA test *and* my Endoscopy... when I brought it up they said the nutritionist would go through the results with me at my next medically supervised weight loss appt). I get appointments with the wrong people, there are items on my online checklist in their system that they say I haven't completed that I have. Not life and death but um- surgery IS and if they can't manage my care now, how can they do it after surgery?

Anyhow, there's an insurance issue (it's a good one actually, I can get approved sooner than expected) and they literally won't believe me. I have a NOTE from insurance telling them why they can submit now, and I talked to no less than 4 people who keep telling me what insurance requires. So today I just got mad, and called and asked to talk to my surgeon. They asked why, and I said that I think they're being terrible and I want someone to listen. I got the clinic manager. She's looking into it now.

I am sure she's mad (she gave me several reasons things have gone the way they have- staff changes, etc) but I really don't care. It's time to start taking care of ME and I am not going to 3 more months of appointments if I don't need to just because someone wants to ignore me. It actually feels kind of good to stand up for myself. We'll see what happens, hopefully I won't get screwed over. But my surgeon talked a lot about patient rights and support, and I feel I deserve that.

If they ignore you and put you off now, they won’t be there for you post op if you have a complication. . I made every excuse for my surgeons failure to return my phone calls or the fact that he was never there and I never could discuss my pain and swallowing issues cause the nurse said I had to talk to him and she couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t until my other dr was angry I was being ignored that I realized how inappropriate it was. And all the very serious complications he didn’t care about have caused damage to my esophagus and sleeve. I now have attempted a revision from sleeve to bypass once which couldn’t be done due to damage at top of my sleeve caused by GERD. so I was referred to a third surgeon to attempt a revision again.

I suggest you make it clear that you need to be a priority or find another surgeon who will make you one. I immediately realized how awful the first surgeons office was after getting many additional opinions and no other office treated me like that.

Make sure you are confident and comfortable with the person you are letting put a knife to you.