1. Health Insurance. Our wonderful health insurance industry has set up guidelines as to what will be paid when a person has an adhesiolysis. Their guidelines include the belief that no adhesiolysis should take longer than 1 ˝ hour to complete. There is on average one rate that has been established for payment of this procedure whether it takes 1 ˝ hour or 10 hours. The insurance industry will pay no more than $2400 (approximate) for a doctor to perform the surgery. If you are a “skilled surgeon” and take the time necessary to meticulously remove each and every adhesion as well as clean out every tiny speck of blood or other foreign bodies, your procedure will take more than 1 ˝ hour. Much more. You cannot perform a second look procedure either. No guarantees can be offered. It isn’t because you don’t want to do what is necessary to perform a successful adhesiolysis (what we the patient term successful), it is because you have been limited by the health insurance industry and the following:
2. Hospitals. Because the insurance industry has restricted the dollar amount that is paid on these surgeries, the hospitals do not want the surgeon to waste time for which they will not be reimbursed. Many adhesiolysis procedures can take as long as 6 to 10 hours or more. Insurance is only reimbursing for about a 1-˝ hour surgery. That means the operating room is being “wasted” for 8-˝ hour while the skilled surgeon performs his adhesiolysis on the patient. They can make better money if they restrict the surgeon from wasting “valuable” operating room time. Those 8 ˝ hours can bring in a lot more money doing other procedures on other patients.
As someone who has worked very diligently on behalf of the victims of ARD, I learned the limitations that surround the skilled surgeons who live and work in the United States. In addition to skilled surgeons being limited in their elected fields by the Health Insurance Industry and for profit hospitals, both in Ob/Gyn and General surgery. We are also plagued by the limited number of effective adhesion barriers being developed for use on reducing or aborting adhesions. Shortly after establishing this site, many of us became excited about a new product that was “promising.” Unfortunately, that product, Intergel, was restricted by the FDA in its use to only female related surgeries, therefore it was of no use to those who had total hysterectomies or to men. I do not need to tell you the most recent outcome of that product!
We now find ourselves excited about another new product, SprayGel, which has shown great potential in reducing adhesion formation. Once we know that the product is out there and that it is being used successfully, we wanted to make this success available to ALL who are suffering with this disease. Places like the Emma Klinik are now available to those who do not or feel they cannot wait for the SprayGel to be made available in the United States. But, by doing this, we were never saying that quality surgeons did not exist in this country. Dr. Harry Reich still performs an excellent adhesiolysis as can be verified by a member of this bulletin board. There are others; Dr. Tom Lyons, of Georgia who is working diligently on behalf of the victims of ARD as is Dr. Alan Johns of Texas. These are just the names of two doctors, but there are others. Unfortunately, these doctors cannot offer guarantees. But, neither can those who operate out of Germany or other countries, but the story’s coming out of Germany sure say something, and they say enough to warrant being listened to!
I have always worked very hard to provide you with the most accurate information so that you can make decisions having considered all sides. To have not informed you that SprayGel was available in Germany or to have let so many opportunities for you, the adhesion sufferer, to secure as much improvements in your life as you might secure, slip by would have been negligent on my part. I want your suffering to end. When you were educating yourself about ARD you looked at all aspects of the disease. Take this time to educate yourself as to the reasons why our options are so restricted. Take this time to do something about it. We do not have access to a great number of doctors skilled in dealing with issues of ARD, or who will offer us medical intervention, short of surgery, but there are some here in the USA who are willing to help us if you can get to them. This is no different for the victims of ARD in any other country in the world!! ARD is recognized as a valid medical condition in some European country’s and recognized as a disabling painful disease and the victims of it can secure disability based on the diagnosis of abdominal/pelvic adhesions, among other anatomical adhesion locations.
Until we have secured recognition of ARD for all people everywhere, past, present and unfortunately for those who are yet to get this, I repeat these words and mean them with every part of my being:
I must state that any accomplishments that I have been involved in be it in Germany, Washington D.C., here in the USA at National level or at International levels would not have been possible with the support and hard work of Helen Dynda, Jean Long, Karla Nygren, Annie Hayashi & Dr. David Wiseman. You may not hear these names often, but be assured that there are people working ever vigilantly in the quest to find answers and ways to increase your quality of life with ARD! Though there are days when you might not think that progress has been made regarding issues of ARD, if it were not true, you would not be reading this, or if you so elect, to discuss it with another victim of ARD! Just four years ago our disorder didn’t even have a name and you could NOT find the word adhesions anywhere in the big wide world of the web! Many doors have been opened in the IAS for the victims of ARD to communicate with one another, to secure education and information, to secure support and comfort, and for many these are ways that they have secured a higher quality of life and for a few, it was a door to re-gaining their lives once again! The IAS has opened many doors and it will continue to do that for us, and the IAS will KEEP the doors open as it a way to offer us hope and help as we seek some sort of peace within our pain and suffering!
I will end with the words that I believe will ultimately make the most profound and immediate difference in each and every life of the victims of ARD!
Be your own best Dr! Empower yourself with education and awareness of ARD, know your symptoms and why you have them well enough to protect yourself from poor medical intervention! YOU be the teacher of what ARD is! You tell how it impacts your life! YOU present validation of your ARD by securing your medical records and by offering educational material validating the existence of ARD! YOU assume responsibility for your medical intervention! YOU demand respect for whatever intervention is needed so that you might live as best you can until the day comes that you might too be fortunate enough to share a happy ending to your suffering! And know that in reality, based on the magnitude of ARD in the USA alone, few, and a very few, have been able to secure enough funding and support to get to Germany!For this I am in awe of such a blessing! For everyone else, it offers hope! I remain in decent health, pain free, some residuel symptoms of to many unskilled surgeries prior to Dr. Reich's! As far as I am concerned, this is little for me to contend with compared to the pain of ARD I lived with for far to many years! I remain a victim of ARD though I am productive, as I have my gall bladder, and I have the memories of ARD ever in my mind! I fear little in my life, and I do not fear death, But I DO fear the pain and sufferring of ARD and all the indignities that surround it, thus, I shall ever be a victim of ARD, and never a survivor! This is simply the reality of ARD!
I will accept and respond to serious inquires or questions regarding the information found in my two posts of today. I will not respond to any IAS posts directed to me regarding them. You MUST state on a personal email to me what the subject is as I do not open the emails of address’s I do not recognize. Thank-you and May God Bless Us All!