Hey hello!
I’m wanting to find others who have gone through St Vincent for their surgery and just want to share experiences. I’ve had an awful time with St Vincent. Started September 2020 and still haven’t had my surgery. I’ve finally written to their management about my experience and hope to hear back soon but I’m afraid I’m going to have to start all over soon and it isn’t my fault.

A little about my situation. I have Healthy Indiana Plan, the surgeon they picked out for me is Dr. Inman, started the 6 month monitored diet/classes September 1 2020, completed and they gave me a list of things to complete before sending my stuff off to insurance which followed:

-Psychological evaluation (completely understandable but I will circle back to this later)
-TSH blood test/ H. Pylori/ Lipid Panel/Hemoglobin A1c Blood test
-Pulmonary clearance from a pulmonologist
-Cardiac clearance from cardilogist, EKG too
-Chest Xray
-and the 3 year weightloss history, statement from primary care giver (all of this makes perfect sense)

my primary care doctor is in South Bend since I moved from there to Indy. I contacted someone named Renita who works with all the patients getting their things ready for insurance. I asked if she had any recommendations on where I could complete all of these things and if I could do it at St Vincent. She said no and that I would have to go through my doctor. Ended up scheduling my pulmonologist and cardiologist appointment in south bend. Took off of work, got a hotel twice in one week since they couldn’t see me on the same day, went to a lab in Indianapolis to get my blood work done, my h pylori, my drug test, etc sent all my stuff in. Insurance approved (they declined the first time around but after their one on one with my surgeon they finally approved). I then found out I could have knocked off months because they did all those tests at St Vincent and I have no idea why Renita didn’t inform me this and that I wasted time and money driving to south bend. I went and got my pre-op done this Tuesday and all I had to do was blood work again and an X-ray. All the nurses seemed to be surprised that I had everything done already. They’re still saying I need to wait 3-4 weeks before I even get my surgery date. They’ve had all my results and testing since June (besides the blood work and X-ray I did on Tuesday) — I’ve had a horrible experience with this center. I’m just wondering how everyone else’s experience has been?

I've never been to Indiana nor your Bariatric group but I want to lend some support and encouragement.

It sounds like the office staff are not doing a good job and you get to suffer and (literally) pay for it. Sometimes it feels personal, doesn't it? It is certainly frustrating.

It also sounds like communication is pretty bad. I'd guess that any non-emergency surgeries have been put on hold because of the spike in Covid cases over the summer. Of course, whatever the reason, they have failed in the communication area also.

Keep banging the drums to get them moving correctly.

You will get there eventually.

Good luck,

Tek

Edited October 14, 20214 yr by The Greater Fool