Varicose Veins – Financial and Insurance Issues

Transcript

“Bothersome issue that we have to deal with is the situation where we see a patient for the first time, who in our opinion requires surgical therapy from the get-go. And I’m going to tell you, those patients are patients who had had development of clots in those ugly varicose veins and their clots have come very close to the deep system. To me, that patient is a complicated varicose vein patient. This is not the just varicose ugly vein person. This is a patient who potentially can develop a life-threatening complication, like is a formation of clot may go to the deep system and go to your lungs. That is a complicated superficial vein patient. I know that patient is that that was going to the bathroom. And all of a sudden noticed a pool of blood inside the leg because he just bumped the leg to the toilet and that created breakdown or rupture of the varicose veins.

And the pressure is so high inside the veins that it bleed quite a bit. And so hopefully the patient is calm enough to put pressure. That’s all it takes, put pressure and wait for a few minutes, 10, 15, 20 for the bleeding to stop. And they can go to the hospital, maybe have that leg aided to stop the bleeding, but that’s a different patient too. That’s a patient who can actually bleed fairly significant if you don’t take care of this prone and surgically. Well, once again, insurance sometimes will deny that because these patients did not use compression stockings before, and they obligate you to go through the motions of prescribing three months of compression stockings, and then reassessing. I can guarantee you that that patient is going to come back with the same problem that compression stockings will not prevent you from that clot happening again, or that bleeding again, because their vein is so frail, the skin is so thin that this is going to happen again. So that patient has no reason to wait for the next three months. But if the patient wants to have their procedure approved and paid by insurance, they have to go through the motions because that’s what they demand. It’s fairly frustrating. Once again, like in all areas of vascular disease, but that’s just an ongoing problem of healthcare in this country.”