Posted by Pete on January 12, 2004 at 08:21:51:
In Reply to: Re: PVI Ablation that went BAD posted by Mike Ware on January 12, 2004 at 07:28:47:
Mike,
Insurance is a major consideration. My hospital bill alone at Hahnemann, a Tenet hospital, was $269,000.
I don't yet have all of my insurance forms, but totals year to date are at $338,000. Besides almost killing me, being responsible for those type of bills would have wiped us out. As it is, our out of pocket was $0.00. Dr. Callans at Penn has performed 200 PVI ablations with 0 tamponades and 1 stroke. Penn has had 4 stokes total. Three of those four were patients who had suffered previous strokes, so Penn does not take those patients anymore. Dr. Callans has determined that the other stroke victim was a result of reversing the heparin too soon. Now they let the heparin reverse naturally, which is part of the two day post op stay.Dr. Callans has studied at the CC under Dr. Natale. As to Dr. Maleki and Hahnemann, I was given national averages for results prior to my procedure. A couple of months later, Dr. Maleki told me that tamponades are rare, maybe 3%-4%, which may be her figures(but are high for national averages). I felt like telling her that her ratio was 50%, or 1 out of 2.