The Surgery That Wasn't

 On Friday Jim took his Covid test and got a negative result. 

Monday morning we drove up to the hospital in Scottsdale for a 10:00 am check in. Surgery was scheduled for 12:30. Because of Covid I could not go back with him to wait for the surgeon. 

I am sitting in the extremely cold surgery waiting room. 12:30 comes and goes. At about 1:00 I get a text from Jim that he hasn't seen the surgeon yet. Figured he was running behind in another surgery.  At 2:13 I get a text from Jim saying the the surgeon, Dr. Gillespie, just informed him that Dr. Grossman, the cardiologist, had not cleared Jim for surgery. This is after they have already hooked him up with IVs. 

I called Dr. Grossman's office to find out what was going on because when we saw him he told us Jim was high risk but surgery was not prohibitive. Was told many things that weren't true by the medical assistant (i.e. that Dr. Grossman had talked to Dr. Gillespie in the last 20 minutes). But found out that the major problem was that Dr. Gillespie's office had not requested a clearance form from Dr. Grossman.  They had requested medical records and notes but not the clearance. We also found out that in those notes Dr. Grossman had made a typo that made it sound like Jim was too high of a risk for surgery. And that is why Dr. Gillespie canceled the surgery. 

Getting this information took over an hour. But we wanted to know why Dr. Gillespie's office had not requested the clearance. Tried calling their office and got no answer. Dr. Grossman also tried calling and let us know he couldn't get through. 

Since we just happened to be in the neighborhood, we went to Dr. Gillespie's office.  Of course, the person responsible for getting the clearance had taken a long weekend. So I ranted at the front line person ( I know it's not fair to them but I was beyond upset). She took down the info and Gina is supposed to call us tomorrow. I want to know WHY this screw up happened. 

In the meantime, Dr. Gillespie had contacted Dr. Tsai, the oncologist, who called and left us a message to go see the radiologist and get set up for radiation.

So Jim is high risk for surgery but is still eligible if the surgeon thinks he can do the surgery. But the surgeon thinks it's a no go because a form is missing and there was a typo. We have an appointment with the radiologist in case surgery is out. But who knows. Certainly not us.

The other thing we want to know is why was the surgery scheduled in the first place without the clearance. Why were we all ready to go into surgery before we found out about this mess. 

Can you imagine the fight I'm going to have on my hands with the insurance!! 

Update:  I wrote this last night and I've now had time to cool down and become rational again. 

Haven't heard from the surgeon's office and I really doubt we will. Which is fine because Jim and I and the Lord have talked it over and we have decided on radiation. We both have received a calm reassurance that this is the right choice for Jim. We have an appointment scheduled for next Monday with the radiologist, Dr. Albert, to have Jim mapped for radiation. 

I also talked to the insurance company and was told by Jim's case manager that because the surgery was canceled by the surgeon we are not responsible for any charges. That is a relief.