Even if a physician accepts insurance, it does not mean he is on your plan's network. You should be able to get a list of colorectal surgeons in your network from your plan administration. They often have this info available on their website too. Then you can check and see if any docs recommended here are on your list. Otherwise, you contact each doctor's office individually and inquire if they are in your network.

It can be daunting, I know, especially since hospitals need to be on your network too.

Jan

See this thread. I think there are actually multiple threads asking this question and also discussing the insurance question - there was another one more recently:

http://j-pouch.org/eve/forums/...467060726#1467060726

Not sure what insurance you have, but both Mt. Sinai and Cornell took mine. Most likely, if you have surgery in NYC, you would be at one of those hospitals.

As far as doctors with insurance, try calling Dr. Sonoda's office at Cornell. If he doesn't take your insurance they will recommend who does. In that practice is Dr. Lee, who I believe takes insurance and Dr. Milsom, who definitely does not.

Alex Ky, Who is at Mt. Sinai did take insurance when I had my surgery.

This is just a few, but at least somewhere to start. You do have to call, as things do change and not sure what your insurance is.

I used Dr Michelassi at Cornell and was very happy. He takes some insurance but not all -- you'll have to call, or use your insurer's website, to confirm.

Dr Michelassi is a prince of a man and a superior surgeon. He also has an incredible administrative staff.

My suggestion is to call Flor at Dr. Michelassi's office and tell her what insurance you have. She's great!

Dr. Sergey Khaitov at Mt. Sinai in NYC. It does depend on your insurance but I was lucky he took mine. The man has the hands of an angel. If insurance permits, I highly recommend him.

Thank you all for your feedback! I really appreciate it. I am unfortunately doing a little worse (Remicade does not seem to be doing its job anymore) and so I am beginning more research on this.

If anyone still reads this, I was wondering if you had any experience having an emergency colectomy and/or if in such a scenario you had enough time to request a specific doctor and/or get it done laparoscopically?

I think you might be confused about what an "emergency" colectomy is. Surgery is considered emergent if you arrive in the ER and need surgery *now*, or if you are in-patient in the hospital and need surgery *now*. Any other surgery -- even if you schedule it two days in advance (which is what I did), is considered elective.

If you need surgery that is truly emergent, it will almost always be performed by the surgeon on call and usually it will be open. I had one close call where they were considering an emergent colectomy for me in the ER and it was going to be performed by the surgeon who happened to be on call that night.

The best way to ensure that you have the surgeon and procedure you want is to consult with a surgeon *now*. You don't need to schedule your surgery at the time of your consult -- it's just a way of establishing a relationship with a surgeon so that when you decide to move forward with surgery, you are already known to them.

For example, I was in your shoes (Remicade was not working) and I had consults with a couple of surgeons. They both said they would do laparoscopic three-step procedures on me. One of them said he thought I should schedule immediately, one of them said he thought I could wait and see if Remicade kicked in late. I said thanks and went on my way.

About two weeks later I took a turn for the worse, decided I wanted surgery, and was able to schedule with one of those surgeons for surgery two days later. I was very lucky (I wanted surgery immediately, he had a cancelation, etc) but it's much, much better to be known to the surgeon *before* you want to schedule your procedure.

Teddy, my surgeon at Mt. Sinai did ALL of my procedures laparoscopically.