New guy with bad valve and questions

[KAJ]

Welcome to the club CJ!

I am just slightly 9 months older than you but had my surgery at 47. I live just north of you in Jacksonville. My cardiologist in Jacksonville gave me two choices, University of Alabama, Birmiingham (UAB) or the Cleveland Clinic. Insurance would not cover Cleveland Clinic.

I hope the Cleveland Clinic in Florida works out for you. Regardless, it sounds like you will go outside of Orlando. If that is the case, find out if the hospital has some short stay apartments or rooms for rent for family members. If not check for hotels next or close to the hospital. My insurance paid for my wife's hotel room that was right next to the hospital.

Another issue to consider is parking. Parking at hotels can be expensive. If that is the case, you may want to see if you can park in the hospital parking assuming of course there is not a fee. Some do, some do not. This of course assumes your hotel is next to or extremely close the hospital. It was not an issue for us since we flew to UAB. I am not sure what a couple of my family members did about the parking.

Pleae keep us posted.
Karl

 

[Mary]

Hi, CJ.
I'm late to this thread, but you've received alot of good advice, and it seems that things are moving along for you.
In your first post you mentioned making your last will and testament. That is one step that you still should take. The mortality for replacement is low, especially if you're young and in good health, but you still need to have your financial affairs in order. My husband and I had wills and power of attorney documents drawn up for about $500.00.
Good luck and let us know how your appointments go.

 

[Brookwood]

The billed amount is different from the paid amount. I know a guy who had Ross Procedure. The billed amount was around $200K, but the cost of his surgery was really only about $33,000.

 

[kfay]

The billed amount is different from the paid amount. I know a guy who had Ross Procedure. The billed amount was around $200K, but the cost of his surgery was really only about $33,000.

This isn't always the case. At the Mayo clinic, the amount my insurance was able to "discount" off of the original bill of approx. $120,000 has been a couple thousand max...BCBS has paid almost the full amount. They also make it very clear that if your insurance discounts for "usual and customary" charges, the patient is liable for any of those amounts. On the other hand, when I went into my local hospital for my chest infection, BCBS paid less than half of the billed amount.

 

[upchurch131]

Good luck with your visit to Cleveland/Orlando. You are not alone in this journey.

 

[CHDDoug]

Welcome CJ! Yeah...I was 33 years old when I had my AVR in February. Good news is that I'm doing great! Back almost full speed and working all that I can. I had the Ross procedure done and it only cost about $100K. I did hit my out-of-pocket max, so it wasn't too bad. I live in TN and went over to TX for a specific surgeon. Do your shopping for a surgeon that specializes in the type of valve that you want (you'll need to figure out which type valve or procedure you want first...talk with a few good surgeons and do lots of research). I went to TX because my surgeon (Dr. William Ryan) specializes in the Ross procedure. Mechanical valves may be a little more straightforward (maybe not...I'm not sure), but you still want a surgeon that does lots of AVR's and knows what to do if anything out of the ordinary is present. As far as traveling after AVR, we drove to TX and back, so that put me in the car for about 11 hours after surgery, but it wasn't too bad. You should be OK, but need to take extra precautions.

Good luck and keep us posted!