Did You Travel For Your Surgery?

[Elgato]

It seems that most of us do not have the luxury of having a nationally high ranked hospital e.g. Mayo or Cleveland nearby, and must make the decision
to either travel or accept a local, lower ranked facility. I know the quality of hospital care is probably as important as the surgeon.
I would like to hear from anyone who made the decision to travel and what problems it created for both you and your family. Was it worth it? Did you do local follow ups?
On discharge, how bad was the travel home?

Thank You

 

[RobThatsMe]

I traveled to the Cleveland Clinic for my surgery. It was a very complex surgery, and I selected them based on their outstanding facility and staff. Due to the nature of my surgery I was in hospital for 30 days. My wife was with me the whole time, and several close friends also came up for a visit.

A very good friend of mine once asked me why I would choose another hospital when I had the option to go to the # 1 ranked hospital. I told him for convenience of family and closeness to home. He looked at me and said, the main thing you must concentrate on is getting fixed, let your family visit and see you later, after you are better. He really drove my decision for me, however, I did interview both, the local recommended surgeons for my surgery, as well as fly up to Cleveland Clinic to interview the surgeons there that would operate on me. After my visit to Cleveland Clinic, I knew this was the place for me.

Rob

The flight home was a non event.

 

[Mentu]

Hi, I live in Tulsa which does not have an international reputation for heart surgery. My Cardiologist recommended a surgeon here at what was then the new Oklahoma Heart Institute. This was also the year that Sternal Talons were approved for use. It turned out that Talons were actually designed by two doctors here in Tulsa although most of the testing was done at Duke Medical Center. Looking back at my surgery, post surgery care and recovery, I cannot imagine having a more positive experience. The surgical result was excellent and the use of the set of Sternal Talons left me with no chest pain. Over the past decades, as the quality of surgical practice has improved, fine Cardiac Surgeons can be found throughout the country. When you combine an excellent surgeon with an excellent hospital, the results are going be similar where ever one lives. My surgery was pretty much routine. My cardiovascular health was good except for my failing valve so I had no problem choosing to stay in Tulsa. As Rob says, it becomes more problematic when surgery is more complicated and in such instances, one should choose a place which has the most experience dealing with those problems. The advantage of selecting a surgeon and hospital near ones home also means that they are immediately available for questions or for support should there be any problems during the early weeks of recovery.

Larry

 

[clay_from_nj]

Drove the half-hour down to St. Joe's in Denver. Very good hospital and very good surgeon. Sure, I might fly halfway around the world to hand pick a Ferrari from the factory if I could afford it, but I'm just as happy shopping at the local Ford dealer.

"Shop local!"

 

[RobThatsMe]

Well, The only additional costs to me was the hotel room for my wife and our airfare.
As far the hospital costs were concerned, there was no difference in price for the surgery.

 

[mainframe]

My cardiologist refered me to a local guy in Seattle, who during our visit told us how complicated the surgery was 4 or 5 times within the 30 minutes we were there. We decided he was not for me and it became apparent that it was time to go out of network. There were good doctors out of network in Seattle, but my wife and I decided getting the best wouldn't be any more expensive. My out of network max for the year was $2000, it didn't matter where I had the surgery done. I sent my records to Pettersson at Cleveland Clinic and Miller at Stanford. Pettersson couldn't take my case for 3 months, Miller could in 1 month. We decided to go to Stanford (from Seattle). Good thing, as my condition worsened quite a bit in that 1 month.

My recovery was a bit of a challenge and I ended up in the hospital for a bit over 2 months and in the SFO area for almost 3 months. It ended up being more expensive as my wife rented a condo and a rental car for whole time, plus airlines tickets (she and her mom made a trip back to Seattle in the middle).

While Dr. Miller was fantastic and Stanford was great, if I had to make the same decision knowing what would happen by waiting 1 month to go to Stanford rather than a sooner surgery up here, I'd probably would have selected one the good (but not great) out of network doctors here in Seattle. I would have had my surgery sooner which meant I would have been a bit less sick and if it turned out I was in the hospital anywhere near the length I was at Stanford, at least my wife and her mom could have have stayed at our house.

 

[Debbrn]

I traveled from Alabama to Boston. I have a complex congenital heart defect and this OHS was my 4th. I definitely wanted to be somewhere that had done multiple redos. At the time UAB did not have a surgeon that fit the bill. I went a few days early to complete all the pre-op testing. My sister flew in from Cincinnati the day before surgery. I stayed a couple weeks after I was discharged. I decided if the local hospital was not able to do the surgery I did not want them handling the complications that may occur short term after surgery. I flew back by myself and my parents met me at the airport on arrival. I checked all my baggage since I had lifting restrictions.

 

[enkaynj]

My situation was rather unique in that I traveled from NJ to Ft.Worth mainly because my brother in law, a cardiologist lived there and recommended my surgeon.
Downside was that I had to impose on my poor brother in law's family for 3 weeks but the upside was a doctor in the house 24 by 7. Can't beat that !!
There was no problem flying back in 3 weeks. Everyone was so nice when they saw me clutching my heart pillow

 

[big_L]

We drove 6-7 hours to Mayo. We split the drive home and spent the night halfway in a motel. I was worried about sleeping horizontally in the motel bed, but I did OK with the pillows. We had virtually no family in the Rochester, so my wife was really alone. This wasn't good, but we knew this going in and she managed to deal with it. All the running around on discharge day was a lot for her (pack up the motel room), get my new prescriptions, get the car and then do all the driving).

We looked at both KU Med Center (spouse is a KU grad and lots of family there) and Mayo. The drive across Iowa on I-80 is so unpleasant that we decided on Mayo. It wasn't a fun drive, but it wasn't high stress like I80.