President Obama Gets Educated On Robotic Heart Valve Repair

Adam – this piece prompted me to write again – something I was planning to do after surgery but wanted to do now – you may remember me – I was asking a while back if anyone had experience with HealthNet regarding robotic assisted surgery for mitral valve repair. At that time – while my procedure had been approved – I had been denied the robotic approach. Here is the update. With the help of an advocate I was able to file an appeal – I followed the process vigorously – sending daily faxes with updated information including the fact that I had uncovered that HealthNet had overturned this type of denial in the past – as recently as a month prior – my appeal was denied and their denial upheld – I then filed with the State of California Dept of Insurance. That same day I sent a fed ex letter to the president of HealthNet and copied several of the companies PR staff and board members. The jist of the letter was to say that while I will respect a policy I felt I had been not treated equally compared to other HealthNet customers. It took only 4 days and they reopened my case and approved the robotic approach. I am scheduled for robotic repair surgery this Friday 7/31/09 at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach CA – I look forward to sharing my story of surgery and recovery and if I can ever help anyone esle with a similar challenge.
Regards
Linda Garbett

Linda,

I am also scheduled for robotic mitral valve repair on August 6th at St. Joseph’s hospital in Atlanta. I would like to contact you if possible either before your surgery or during our recovery process. My email is janicehknapik@yahoo.com.

Is there any way I could have a mitral valve repair at this wonderful Cleveland Clinic? There are NO minimally invasive heart facilities in South Africa. The idea of being split from neck to navel for open-heart surgery terrifies me.
Jackie Keeton
Cape Town