A Florida spine surgeon says that insurance companies often get in the way of treating patients in the way those patients need to be treated, especially when it comes to his minimally-invasive surgical procedure.
“The insurance companies are just bureaucracies that serve themselves, not the patients and certainly not the doctors,” said Dr. Alfred Bonati. “Rather than help patients receive the critical care they need, they often hinder patients from receiving that care. It is a sham industry that benefits financially from what I call ‘sick-care,’ not healthcare.”
For starters, Dr. Bonati says insurance companies that require patients to remain in-network and see only doctors associated with those networks often prevent patients from finding the right doctor to treat their conditions.
Further, Dr. Bonati explained that authorization of procedures delays critical care to patients in need. His patented surgical technique, which has a patient-reported 98 percent satisfaction rating, sometimes requires patients to have separate procedures on back-to-back days.
Patients at the Bonati Spine Institute, many of whom have had multiple failed procedures at other surgical centers, are typically up and walking within an hour of surgery. If they are not, another procedure will be performed immediately to ensure the patient is cured.
“Insurance companies can take up to 15 days to authorize a procedure,” Dr. Bonati said. “If a patient needs more than one procedure, which is sometimes the case with our targeted precision procedures, then the patient might have to wait another 15 days to get the care they need if we operated inside their networks.”
“This creates more extensive recovery time, physical therapy and pain management, which the in-network surgical facilities benefit from financially,” he said, “With our procedure, there usually is no physical therapy, no pain management, and very little recovery time since the patient is up and walking immediately after each surgery.”
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