Great Results. Poor Post-Op Care. Abbeville, AL

We welcome all feedback from our patients - positive, negative or neutral - as it allows us to better understand our patients' needs, and provides an opportunity to address their concerns. We are delighted that you are happy with your surgical results. We are also concerned, and a bit surprised, with the perceived deficiency in our post-operative care. We have numerous policies in place to ensure that all post-operative patients receive the support that they need. One such policy requires that the patient have a caregiver present the day of the surgery. This designated person drives the patient home following surgery, receives written post-operative care instructions and confirms the first follow-up appointment. Our policy requires that the caregiver sign the post-operative document as an acknowledgement of receipt. We take post-operative care extremely seriously. As such, we typically schedule two appointments within the first few weeks of the surgery date. The first appointment is scheduled for the day after the surgery, with the second appointment being made for 3 or 4 weeks later. Because the first 24 hours after surgery are critical, if a patient is unable to make it back to our office the next day, Dr. Hedden makes a house visit to check on the patient. For patients who come in from out of town, Dr. Hedden will often make a “house call” to the patient's hotel room the evening of the surgery day. Dr. Hedden provides his business card with personal cell phone number, email and office phone number at surgical check-in, and again at post-operative check out. We also encourage our patients to contact us between appointments if they have concerns or questions that were not addressed during an office visit. After checking our call records (which we keep meticulously), we have no record of any unreturned calls from patients in the last several months. With that said, we want to extend our apology if your 3-week check up via Skype was too brief and did not cover all of questions that you had. Lastly, we encourage input from our patients if they have ideas on how to improve any part of our practice. We invite you to contact us if you would like to discuss the details of your care, or make suggestions for improving our post-operative efforts. In the meanwhile, we wish you the best.

Hi taylor; I am so sorry if we made you feel rushed or abandoned. I have addressed the issue with the two girls that are assigned to call out of state patient at the 2-3 week window as have been reassured this would not happen again. But please remember I made house calls the evening of surgery and even gave my cell number to you as I do all my patients because I never want a patient feeling as though they can not reach me. I know most patients feel it's not appropriate to call the doctor but I always want you to have access to me as I know it is extremely stressful having surgery and being from out of town and feeling alone. As for the Skype follow up. If you recall I never end a consult without asking if there are any other questions so never trying to rush out but if there are no more questions the patient has then I allow the nurse to finish with the Skype call. Please please remember you have my cell number and here it is again for everyone 205-601-4127 text or call me at any hour of the day or night if you are ever worried about anything. I am very sorry we have lost your trust and I will talk to all staff involved in your care to prevent anything like this in the future but please call the office so we can make sure you are ok and doing ell as this was left anonymous we have no way to make sure your doing well.

So sorry you had the same poor post-op experience that I had. I'm glad you're pleased with your results. I Have no idea why he did such sloppy work on me but it's very disappointing and the only thing I can do is post my reviews at the various websites. Wishing you the best in your recovery.