How much is ear tube surgery?

veloelle

I'm officially furious beyond belief. DS got his 8th EI, this time a double. He'll br 10 minths on Friday. Our pussyass medical group won't do tubes on babies under 12 months. I can't get him in for a surgery consult until February 25, and that was me being pushy. I knew we'd have at least two more before the consult. I have no idea when they'll actually do the tubes. I'm this close to seeing if we paid all out of pocket to fast track it. How can you let a baby chronically be in pain?! Really effing sick of it.

xbrooklyngrl

aww Poor baby! Why won't they do it now?

veloelle

I guess their policy is they won't allow the ENT's to do tubes on babies; I think its a liability issue. So instead of our ENT who did tubes at the hospital we're being refered to do them already (prior to joining the current practice), we get to wait. The hospital we were refered to has a 2 month wait list just to get a consult. You know, that's fine for an adult, or say when I had knee surgery. It's an irritant, but not life threatening. But babies?! This is affecting his hearing, he ALWAyS has fluid on his ears. It is literally one after another since he was 5 months old. I know it's not the medical practices place to care abouty kid, but I wish they did.

mrsmikey

Is it your insurance that is saying no or the drs?  DS had his tubes the day after his first birthday, but that just happened to be when it was scheduled, they would have done it sooner if there had been an opening.  We had to wait a long time to get a consult too, and he did end up with another infection during that time.  But after the consult it was only a week or two before the surgery. 

As far as how much it costs, I really have no idea.  We got bills from several different places, the hospital, the ENT, the anesthesiologist, etc.  And our insurance covered alot of it.  So really I'm not sure.  I think we still ended up paying about $1500 after insurance paid their part.  But I have no idea what it would have been without insurance.

veloelle

Our insurance approved the referal. Our med practice won't do them.

xbrooklyngrl

I feel your pain! I was kind of in that situation, except I was the one that wanted to hold off on the tubes. B's ENT was pushing them by 9 mos and I wasn't comfortable with it. B did end up growing out of it but around 3ish and her hearing did return to normal. For us, it was hell, she always had fluid, an EI and she blew one ear drum 2 x's and the other once. But she never had as many ear infections as your son and not in such a small time span.

mrsmikey

veloelle:

Our insurance approved the referal. Our med practice won't do them.

I see.  Can you get a referral somewhere else?  Sorry if you covered that already, but I'm a little bit confused.  I know with our ENT there is no rule about age.  Well, I'm sure there is, but I know it's not a year.  He was referred at 10 mos old, but b/c it was the end of the year it just took 2 months to get in with her and get the surgery scheduled.  I have friends that were able to get in much quicker, it was just a bad time of year for us.

Littlejen22

I would call all of the childrens hospitals that are withing whatever you consider a reasonable distance and see if they will do it on a 10mo and tell them the story.  Good luck.

lilpiglet

It is possible to go to a different med practice?  If your insurance approved the referral, then i dont see how the dr. can say no, just find a different dr.  Can you go right to an ENT?  I mean they'll transfer the records, so it's not like a new dr. or the ENT can't see the pattern.... I'm sorry.. that bites.  DS#2 had tubes at 9 months, he had EI after EI after EI and always had fluid, they didn't hesitate after 3 months of EI's to put tubes in.

tanda627

DS had tubes put in right after his first birthday. That is just when he could be fit in. I actually went to an ENT that was recommended instead of the one the pedi had referred us to. By doing that we had our surgery date before we would have even had a consult. I think it was about $3000( at the children's hospital) not including consult or followup visit. Our pedi has a policy that the kid has to have a certain number of infection in an amount of time or an ear infection that won't clear up with several rounds of antibiotics. I understand how you feel because I was very frustrated.

KoriBrett

The docs wouldn't give us a referral until he had 3 straight months of meds not clearing up EIs. ?Which meant that even though he'd be sick, go in, get meds, be fine 10 days later, 3 days after that be infected, they made us wait. ?5months old or so until he got tubes at 16months old. ?I wanted to beat someone.

Idk. ?Can you just flat out call the ENT and have them write a letter of med. necessity and have the pede sign it & kinda do a reverse referral? ?

Stellasmom

I think Ds's were billed at about 4k.

We paid $400 out of pocket. It would definitely have hurt without insurance.

Andrewsgal

We paid a total of $1600 out of pocket the total was billed at a little over 5K.

 

I would be finding a new ped practice ASAP if i were you. 

tim+erin

That is just crazy.  DS2 got tubes at 9 months.  He had 6 EIs in a 4 month period.  The hospital we had them done at doesn't like to do them on kids under 6 months unless absolutely necessary.  Making the poor kid wait is ridiculous.  I think the total cost was around $3k for everything.  Is there another practice you can take him to?  Our pedi gave us a referral when DS was only 6 months old because of how many he had and the fact that DS1 had tubes.