TX Bariatric Practices to Avoid?

DianaCox

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Dec 30, 2013
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San Jose
Someone shared these links with me:

Barker's practice: http://www.dmagazine.com/publicatio...medical-center-bankruptcy?ref=hpcarouseltitle

The idea for Forest Park came up around 2007. Drs. Richard Toussaint, an anesthesiologist, and Wade Barker, a bariatric surgeon, were tired of the bureaucracy and inefficiencies they’d seen firsthand at other hospitals. So they decided to build their own. They envisioned a surgical sanctuary with top-of-the-line equipment in spacious operating rooms staffed with more nurses than their competitors. They planned to model the amenities after a Ritz-Carlton hotel—plenty of natural light, hardwood floors wherever possible, original art, the scent of freshly washed sheets in common areas, a cafeteria with a chef who cooks fresh meals. And, most important, the caregivers would run it—not administrators who had never practiced medicine.
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However, some of the partners and the individual hospital boards had quietly grown unsettled with Vibrant. Many of the hospitals were struggling with their managed care contracts. Forest Park had succeeded in its early days as an “out-of-network” provider, which meant it was able to charge more than standard insurance reimbursement rates. They weren’t the only game in town running this strategy, though, and the insurance companies caught on. The payers began steering procedures to hospitals that were already “in-network,” forcing Forest Park to shift its strategy and gain approvals as an in-network provider, which would mean lower reimbursement rates. This obviously affected revenue, and Vibrant apparently hadn’t adequately planned for the change.
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Texas Capital Bank has sued Barker, Toussaint, and Genecov, seeking guaranties related to loans provided for Southlake and San Antonio.
***
(From the comments): "I find it shocking (sort of) that Furniss is sticking to the story that the big bad insurance companies are to blame. This was a business model doomed to fail. The doctors made huge amounts of money while the hospital was "out of network" but once they had to compete on a level playing field it become unsustainable. the docs were hooked on the cash they were pulling out, and when that slowed down they had no skin in the game anymore. They all get what they deserve. It is sad for the nurses and technicians who cared for patients every day who are now out of jobs. No one should believe what any of these character say. Barker, Toussaint, Genecov, Wyatt, Burt, Furniss... these are the guys to blame for this failure, this travesty."
David Kim's practice: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/northeast-tarrant/article4115524.html

The suit alleges that Saucedo initially thought Kim would perform the surgery but learned that Holden would do it. Richard-Hamilton was also in the operating room, although Saucedo didn’t know that and did not consent to her presence there, the lawsuit states.

During the surgery, Richard-Hamilton made an incision and then inserted an instrument called a trocar, which was equipped with a camera to guide the device through Saucedo’s skin and into his abdomen. Saucedo alleges that Richard-Hamilton cut through the aorta — the largest artery in the body — but mistook it for a different artery.

When they noticed a lot of blood in Saucedo’s abdomen and saw his blood pressure falling, they sewed the artery shut, still not realizing it was his aorta, the lawsuit says. This cut off blood supply to his legs, it says.

Once complications arose and after Saucedo lost about 4 liters of blood, he was transferred to Baylor Medical Center Grapevine, where he was in the emergency room and then intensive care for several hours before he was sent to the operating room.

The suit says that initially Hatcher, the admitting physician in the emergency room at Baylor Medical Center Grapevine, did not check for a pulse in Saucedo’s extremities or assess them for warmth, the lawsuit alleges. After Saucedo was transferred to the intensive care unit, the nursing staff “finally ascertained that he had cold and pulseless legs,” it says.

After another operation, a vascular surgeon found a “through and through” laceration of the distal aorta and a segment of the aorta “over-sewn with sutures, according to the lawsuit.

According to court documents, Saucedo’s organs were beginning to fail because the blood flow was cut off, and he underwent bilateral amputations below and then above the knee. He began to recover and was transferred to rehabilitation Dec. 18. He is being fitted for prosthesis and “will require lifetime medical care,” the lawsuit says.

Saucedo alleges that Holden was grossly negligent because she allowed Richard-Hamilton to insert the trocar without adequately monitoring her, which resulted in misidentifying the aorta and sewing it shut. The lawsuit says Holden violated the standards of care that call for physicians to have an understanding of anatomy.​

Ya think??
 
Gross negligence. They can't give that guy enough money.

A surgeon who doesn't KNOW he cut through the aorta? Not possible. It was a buff and turf. He tried to dump his mistake on Baylor(I used to work there). Then Baylor can join the gross negligence by failing to notice the guy had no pulses and and was bleeding out from a slashed aorta.
 
OMG. I had surgery at Forest Park. Dr. Kim did my surgery. Ugh. I know there has been another suit against Dr. Kim. I am so thankful nothing happened to me. I'm sorry for this fellow.

How many surgeries did your doctor perform the day you had surgery. Kim had to have performed 8-10. I was the last one because I was a revision. I was told to show up by 10 AM and I didn't have surgery until almost 6 pm that night. The hospital was so full that I never made it out of the transitional room into a regular room. They kept me and 2 other patients there over night. I thought that was ridiculous. But I don't know what the norm is.
 

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