General Category > Insurance
BCBS of Illinois and House Clinic
steverino:
Hi. first time poster. Looking forward to talking to everyone!
I am considering House Clinic for my AN surgery. Has anyone had any experience dealing with BCBS of Illinois when they wanted to go to House?
leapyrtwins:
No experience with House or BCBS of Illinois, but if you live in Illinois, you might want to check out The Ear Institute of Chicago @ www.chicagoear.com The docs are top-notch and highly experienced in treating ANs. They do both GK and surgery and have offices in Evanston, Elk Grove, and Hinsdale.
Jan
OTO:
House is contracted with Blue Cross/Blue Shield. In my case, it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Hawaii (Hawaii Medical Service Association).
House will send you a one page summary of the estimated cost. You can call Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois and ask them to double check that House Clinic is listed as a contract provider. The House Clinic Financial Office can assist.
Also need to check which hospital, your doctors what to use. Typically, the House doctors will use St Vincent (across the street from the House Clinic). However, recently, some House doctors have been performing surgery at Cedars Sinai. Cost will include the surgerical service; ICU and regular Hospital room; Physical Therapy; and Lab/X-ray.
Also need to confirm who the neurosurgeon will be. Dr. Schwartz is on the House Clinic staff. Dr. Hitzberger is independent. You might want to ask your doctors which Anesthesia Service they will use too.
House Clinic works with Dr. Stefan (upstairs in the Clinic building). Dr. Stefan is internal medicine. He will do a pre-surgery physical (includes EKG, pulmunary function test, blood work up and chest X-ray). He will also visit you in the Hospital post-surgery. You will also visit him in his office before you leave LA. He is contracted with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Kate B:
Hi,
Depending on the size of the company you work for, they may be able to negotiate with House to become an approved provider. That is what happened with me. The insurance company through my work assigned a case manager and their contact with House made them an innetwork provider making my costs reduced.
My experience with House was outstanding. They invented most of the procedures and tools used in acoustic neuroma operations performing approximately 200 per year (House website state). This was one time I wanted to be a garden variety. They also do a consult for free..just send them the MRI's and the report to the address listed on their website.
That being said, there are several experienced doctors in Illinois. I found that most of them were new to Middle Fossa in 2001. Most operated with translab and retrosigmoid regularly. One thing that was important to find out was the number of surgeries performed using each type of surgery. There is a drastic difference in numbers among the various types.
How large is your tumor?
Good luck in your journey.
Kate
leapyrtwins:
Kate -
Chicago Ear does every kind of ear surgery imaginable - including those totally unrelated to ANs. From what I know, they do perform middle fossa and are very experienced with it. The doctors there are more than happy to give out their "numbers" for all types of surgery that they perform.
Jan
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version