Coordination of Patient Care

We exclusively provide infertility surgery at A Personal Choice and your patients will receive the most professional and specialized care in a health care environment dedicated to their infertility concerns and treatment. From the moment your patient calls our office, a staff person who is knowledgeable about every aspect of our services will promptly answer their call and be able to answer many of their questions.

Medical records before tubal reversal surgery

When potential patients are considering tubal surgery, we request they send copies of their infertility records, tubal ligation operative and pathology reports, and images of any diagnostic tests directly to our office for review. We will review these reports without charge and evaluate their candidacy for microsurgical tubal reversal surgery or tubal repair for blocked fallopian tubes.

Although we prefer to review records prior to surgery, we realize many records may not be available after the minimum state requirements on medical record retention have been met. We have found we can repair most tubal sterilization procedures and provide patients with a chance of becoming pregnant. Since we are able to repair the tubes in over 98% of patients who come to our center, we do not require a patient have records in order to have surgery at our center.

Our practice is unique because we offer patients an optional screening laparoscopy should they require additional reassurance about the reparability of their fallopian tubes.

Scheduling tubal reversal surgery

After review of records and answering patient questions by phone or email, scheduling surgery is done exclusively between your patient and our office. Patients are required to pay a scheduling fee to start the surgery scheduling process. This fee allows our nurse to conduct a 15 to 30 minute phone interview with the patient to screen for any medical conditions, which could make the patient an unsafe outpatient surgery candidate.

If you are concerned about your patient’s health history then we encourage you to send pertinent medical records or to call our office to provide additional insight you feel is pertinent.

We have found most patients are safe candidates for outpatient surgery. If any condition exists which requires further evaluation then the scheduling nurse will notify Dr. Monteith or the anesthesia staff for further evaluation. The only test we require to have surgery at our center is a complete blood count to screen patients for anemia before elective surgery. To be considered a candidate, patients must have hemoglobin above 10mg/dL and a hematocrit above 30%. Patients are also required to have a Body Mass Index under 36.9 and this is for optimal surgical and airway management safety. If certain high-risk medical conditions exist, we may require additional testing and this will be discussed with the patient at the time of scheduling.

During the end of the scheduling interview, our nurses will help the patient coordinate and schedule a date for surgery, provide advice on travel, and send the patient information regarding our discounted hotel rates.

Efficient one-on-one care

We pride ourselves on providing one-on-one care to our patients and do our best to have the patient’s visit with us be as efficient as possible. Our goal it to minimize appointment and surgical wait times for patients. We are able to do this because we have a dedicated staff and we exclusively specialize in sterilization reversal. We are not distracted by the provision of other patient care activities that are commonly provided by other practices.

One key element of providing efficient and personalized care is our mandatory hotel policy. Although this may seem unnecessary to patients, especially those patients who are local, our hotel policy is responsible for helping to assure timely patient arrival for surgery and has been instrumental in keeping our patient office visit and surgical wait times as short as possible. Our hotel arrangements provide for discounted rates at two of the most attractive hotels located in the most desirable area in Raleigh, North Carolina. Patients are provided private car service between our office and the hotel and are within walking distance of pharmacies, restaurants, shopping, and entertainment.

Post-operative consultation and follow-up

When patients initially schedule surgery with our office we encourage them to have a follow-up appointment with their local physician within four weeks of their surgery.

All patients are required to return to the office the day after their surgery for a post-operative incision evaluation and a conference with Dr. Monteith. During the post-operative evaluations, patients will be provided copies of their tubal surgery operative report, a letter of medical recommendations for after tubal surgery, and have any remaining questions answered by Dr. Monteith. All patients are provided Dr. Monteith’s personal cell phone number to call should any emergencies occur or should they have urgent questions.

Transfer of medical records

Members of our Business Office staff are crucial to making sure patient’s surgical records are appropriately transferred to the referring physician.

Upon patient arrival, we ask patients to complete a release of medical information. If patients provide consent we will fax copies of the operative report and a letter of recommendation to your office. The operative report will contain detailed information about the tubal lengths and the presence of any additional gynecologic conditions. Dr. Monteith’s letter of recommendation will contain information pertinent to the patient’s surgery and the most up-to-date recommendations regarding the diagnosis and treatment of ectopic pregnancy as well as common concerns after tubal ligation reversal surgery.

We will also provide the same information to patients both in hard copy and electronically.