President Clinton's Letter As seen on the Sally Show 4/17/2000

Locating the very best in health care since 1992. Don't let the closest hospital to you limit your choices. Not all hospitals are equipped for or know every procedure. Not all have the right specialist on staff. Locate what and who you need for your health care needs. (Remember that most other information resources limit themselves to only the physicians that use their hospital.) Second Opinion, helping those who seek the best hospitals and physicians in treating, diagnosing or managing a medical condition. All hospitals do not have the same quality of physicians. Nor is every college graduate equally as smart. Seek the best for your medical condition. Prostate surgery, Hip replacement, Knee replacement, Heart BI-pass. Do you want a physician that performs 2-3 week, or 2-3 year? Make sure you know! Shop around. Better doctors at a lower cost. We find them every day. We will check for the following on the physicians we recommend and supply you with a full background check on them: Names, addresses, phone number of physicians Education and Training Board Certifications Disciplinary Actions – We seldom recommend a physician with disciplinary actions. Civil Lawsuits Malpractice Judgments Sexual abuse or sexual misconduct with a patient Cited for criminal convictions Mis-prescribing or over prescribing of drugs Cited or convicted of drug or alcohol abuse Practicing without a license Professional Misconduct Falsifying Medical Records Medicaid/Medicare fraud Loss or reduction of Hospital Privilege Search for published articles and past speaking events Positions Held Professional Affiliations/Memberships Success rate A Second Opinion client has never sued a physician we recommended. We accept no fees from doctors, hospitals or insurers to recommend the best specialists in the country. Satisfied customers are why we’re still in business.

  Cosmetic Surgery -

The first step in dealing with risk in cosmetic surgery is to acknowledge it. Although the risks to healthy, well selected patients are small, they are nevertheless real. Knowing the risks ahead of time is critical to good decision making about surgery and equips patients who do encounter complications to better deal with any further treatment needed.
Second, explore the limitations of surgery with your surgeon in detail, asking about what other interventions might be necessary if problematic healing is encountered.
Make certain your doctor is properly trained - Unfortunately. "Board Certified" doesn't necessarily mean much today. There are a plethora of "Boards" set up for the express purpose of allowing members to masquerade as trained specialists. Most doctors performing cosmetic surgery today ( and calling themselves "cosmetic surgeons") have no training in plastic surgery, and many have no training in surgery of any kind! Laws allow any physician with a license to call himself anything he wishes. Make sure the facilities to be used are appropriate for the contemplated surgery -
There has been an explosion in cosmetic surgery performed in non-hospital facilities. This has been driven in part by economics ( small centers usually charge less than hospitals), but has also been promulgated by the flood of physicians practicing "cosmetic surgery" without proper credentials. The huge numbers of cosmetic procedures performed by general practitioners, dermatologists, gynecologists and others could only take place in freestanding facilities outside of the purview of credentialing bodies.
Clearly, some procedures can be safely and skillfully performed outside of the hospital environment. However, it is the obligation of the practitioner to see to it that patient safety is not thereby compromised.
Ask questions!
Research his or her background and qualification's!
Supplied by the NY Plastic Surgery Association

If your wife needed a coronary angioplasty procedure, and the hospital she was in wanted to transfer her to another facility, would you know where to go?
Would the hospital know where to send you ?
Three hospitals perform this procedure in Pensacola, Florida.
One hospital in 1996 performed the procedure 704 times, one, 104 times and the other, 74 times.
EXPERIENCE makes a critical difference in success rates. (Complications are 40% lower in hospitals that perform the procedure more than 400 times a year than those that do it only 200 or so.)
What hospital would you want to be transferred to?

High cost and quality don't necessarily correlate.
Comparing two hospital's in Philadelphia on heart bypass surgery, one charged $84,000.00 and the other charged $44,000.00. The higher priced hospital had a higher-than-expected mortality rate, while the other had a death rate in the range expected.

A busier surgeon means better care. (Comparing bypass surgery)
Surgeons doing more than 50 operations a year did significantly better (an on average risk-adjusted mortality rate of 3.2%) than surgeons doing fewer (average rate, 7.2%).

The type of surgery you have may depend on where you live or what hospital you're at! ?
The chance of an Iowa man with enlarged prostate will undergo surgery for the problem varies from 15% to 60% depending on the hospital treating him.
The chance that a woman in Maine will eventually have a hysterectomy ranges from 20% - 70% depending on where she lives.
Why the difference, local preference rather than any scientific justification.

This Cancer Surgery Can Kill You.
In certain cancers, the intrusion of the surgery itself can prove deadly down the road. Gastric and rectal cancer could improve its success rate by as much as 40% if the surgeon would stop operating with the old techniques.
The majority of surgeons in the U.S. are still performing outdated procedures that can cause the accidental spread of cancer cells.

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