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Click Here to read what patients say about having surgery at the Norman Parathyroid Center. When you return home, you simply see your doctor in about 2 month's time--you do NOT need an endocrinologist. There are no stitches to take out (they all dissolve). You simply remove the small band-aid 7 days after the operation. We will provide you a pre-printed lab slip to get your blood tested in a month or two and will send the results of this test directly to all of your doctors. We will communicate directly with all of your doctors who will be sent detailed information about your parathyroid operation--they will have all your pertinent records before you see them a month or two after the operation. Your doctors will also get a personal letter from our doctors describing what was done and they will get a photo of the removed parathyroid tumor and detailed measurements of your parathyroid hormone levels. The best part of course, is that minimal parathyroid surgery performed by these surgeons has a cure rate over 99%, the risk of complications is extremely low (far less than one tenth of one percent risk), the incision is very small (almost always one inch or less), does not require full endotracheal general anesthesia, and postoperative pain is very little (usually lasts only a few hours). THIS IS NOT A BIG OPERATION. It is a safe and quick outpatient procedure. And yes, everybody gets a mini operation even if their parathyroid scan is "negative". We do NOT decide on who gets a mini operation based upon the scan results. Please read that again--this is what confuses the most people. Everybody gets a mini operation here, we do the same operation on everybody regardless of scan results (we look at all 4 glands in almost all patients). STOP GETTING SCANS! We wish nobody got a scan before coming here... it will not help and will not change what we do. And yes, we will take care of any worrisome thyroid nodules during your operation--we do this all day long.
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We take almost all Insurance Types for the Parathyroid Operation ... however, patients living outside of the Tampa Bay area are required to pay a "Consultation Fee" We accept most insurance for the cost of the operation, including Medicare. Our hospital, anesthesia team, x-ray, etc will also accept almost all insurance payments for the operation. HOWEVER, There is a $750.00 Consultation Fee that is charged to all Florida patients who don't live in the immediate Tampa area. This fee covers the cost of organizing your medical information from all of the various sources and entering your information into our huge computer database of thousands of parathyroid patients so your disease can be reviewed by one or more of our surgeons--who will then determine what your best course of action should be. One of the experts will call you on the phone and consult with you about your parathyroid disease, putting it in context with over 20,000 other patients that they have seen and our computer has analyzed. Almost all cases are reviewed by at least 2 of the experts. IMPORTANT! Your insurance will not pay this consultation fee and it will be your responsibility. This fee covers the organization of your chart and the phone consultation with Dr Norman, Dr Politz, Dr Lopez, or Dr Toro. This fee is for your consultation before you get to Tampa to determine if you have parathyroid disease, how severe it is, and what your best means of treatment would be. This fee is not dependent upon you having surgery with us. Important--this saves you the costs of an office visit, a day of travel to and from Tampa, and a night in a hotel.. and gets you the opinion of the most experienced parathyroid doctors in the world. However, this fee is NOT billable to your insurance company, so don't ask them to pay it--they will not--it is not their responsibility. If you cannot afford this fee we are sorry, but don't ask for a consultation. Your insurance will not pay it. If you think the fee is a lot of money, just think about the money you will waste getting sestamibi scans and x-rays that won't help (and we won't use). Want to save money? Don't get scans and x-rays. Stop going to the doctor to "watch" your high calcium levels for years. Out of State Patients must pay a $1750 Consultation Fee. If you don't live in Florida, this is you. We will obtain approvals from your insurance company and take care of the billings to your insurance company for the cost of the operation, however, insurance companies will not pay this chart prep, data entry, chart review, and phone consultation fee. Therefore, the fee for the consultation is 100% the responsibility of the patient. This fee includes assimilating your records from your various doctors into a parathyroid-specific chart that our doctors will review. It also includes entering all of your data into our secure database that will compare your disease with many thousands of others with this same disease so we can predict prior to your operation what your best treatment is, how many parathyroid glands are bad, and what symptoms may or may not improve. One of our four expert doctors will then call you on the phone for a phone consultation. This process typically saves you at least one or two days of travel time, one office visit, and one night in a hotel. And we won't spend your money on dumb, unnecessary x-rays and scans. This process works extremely well. The use of the computer database is one reason why we have the highest cure rate and the lowest complication rate in the world. There are no exceptions to this $1750 Consultation Fee if you don't live in Florida, and this fee is the patient's responsibility--the insurance company will not pay this fee. The primary purpose of this fee is so you can have your medical records reviewed by our experts and receive a phone consultation to discuss your parathyroid disease and to develop a treatment plan. This fee is NOT billable to your insurance company, so don't ask them to pay it--they will not--it is not their responsibility. If you cannot afford this fee, don't ask for a consultation. Your insurance will not pay it. If you do not have surgery with us, but go through the consultation process, then this fee is due. This is not a surgery fee, this is a consultation fee to see if you need surgery for hyperparathyroidism. Your insurance will pay for the surgery, but not the consultation. Parathyroid Re-Operations: If you require a second surgery (or third, etc) for parathyroid disease because a previous surgeon was unsuccessful then the "Consultation Fee" is $2500. Your insurance will not cover this consultation fee, so if you don't come here for your first parathyroid surgery, please pick a good surgeon. The insurance WILL cover the cost of the operation. This "complex" consultation fee is also applied to all patients that require a parathyroid operation and have had THYROID surgery in the past 20 years, but the fee will be $2000. This "complex" fee will be applied to ALL patients needing parathyroid surgery who have had a previous thyroid or parathyroid operation regardless of what state they live in. This fee applies whether you have a phone consultation from Canada or you live down the street in Tampa. This type of surgery is much more complex than first-time neck operations and there are few doctors in the US who do this type of operation with any frequency. Your chart is much more complex. The disease is more complex. The decisions preoperatively and intra-operatively are much more complex. The decisions that need to be made prior to the operation and the planning of the operation is much more complex. Our computer database and experience with these patients is unparalleled. The preparation of these patients is significantly more difficult and takes considerably more time for our surgeons to review and study. Of course, the extra time we put into your problem almost always means we can find and remove the tumor that other surgeons could not. Our success rate for re-operations when other surgeons were unsuccessful is near 99%... and they also go home an hour or two after the operation. About 15% of our surgery schedule is re-do parathyroid surgery... pick your surgeon wisely. We do between 1 and 3 re-operations every day because another surgeon couldn't find the parathyroid tumor. The $2500 consultation fee is your responsibility and cannot be submitted to insurance for reimbursement. It also takes longer to put together the records for people who need a re-operation, so know that it may take 2 (or rarely 3) weeks to have a consultation if somebody else has already tried to cure your parathyroid disease. Patients Seen in the Office: While
our practice is nationwide, we welcome those patients living in the
immediate area of our office (30.0 mile radius), at 2400 Cypress Glen Drive, Wesley Chapel, FL 33544, to come in for a traditional in-office
consultation. Since parathyroid disease is not very common, this
rule affects only a small portion of our total patient population.
Whether you can qualify for an office visit vs. consultation by
phone will be established by MapQuest
Maps. If you live within the 30
mile radius and come to our office for an office consultation then
the Chart Prep and Data Entry Fee is $150. This is an additional fee
that is NOT covered by your insurance, and is your responsibility.
This fee is in addition to your insurance co-pay and deductibles (if
any). This fee is payable prior to your office appointment or at the
time of your appointment. Your insurance WILL NOT PAY THIS FEE.
THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS FEE. Waiting Lists - When Can You Have Surgery by the World's Most Experienced Surgeons?We perform parathyroid surgery 5 days per week. It takes about 3-10 days for your chart to be completed and for one of our doctors to review it (a little longer if you have already had an unsuccessful parathyroid operation somewhere else). The entire process from the time of submission of the online form to an operation is usually about 3 to 4 weeks. The good news: We are good at this because we do FAR more parathyroid operations than anybody else in the world... and we'll get lots more experience before its your turn. The bad news: there are other parathyroid patients in front of you (we will be practicing on them!). Remember, we'll do more parathyroid operations during the few weeks you have to wait for your surgery than almost any other surgeon will do in several lifetimes. Also remember, this is not a cancerous tumor, and you've already had this disease for years... Yep, almost all patients have been growing a parathyroid tumor in their neck for at least 4-5 years before somebody figures it out. There are some exceptions to getting in sooner; we save a few spots on our schedule for patients with calcium levels above 12 or those since this can be a dangerous situation. IMPORTANT: Throughout this site we talk about Dr Norman, Dr Politz, Dr Lopez, and Dr Toro in the same sentence. This is because at least two surgeons take part in the care of almost all patients, although only one of them will call you to discuss your case on the phone. You will spend time with two of our surgeons at the hospital prior to your operation. Virtually every patient has two of our surgeons participating in their operation. Thus patients get the benefit of having two extremely experienced surgeons. We'd venture to say, there is nothing in parathyroid disease that we have not seen--several times! Some patients will have Dr Toro call them on the phone for their consultation, while others will have Dr Lopez, Dr Norman or Dr Politz call them. However, two doctors will spend time with you at the hospital, and will perform your operation as a team. Final clarification: The phone consultation is by one of four doctors, but the surgery is performed by two surgeons together. Almost everybody spends time with two of our surgeons in person prior to the operation. Patients from Other Countries / and Patients Without InsuranceWe operate on several patients from Canada every week, as well as patients from other countries weekly. The total cost if you do not have insurance and must pay for the operation out of pocket is $11,250. This covers all consultations (includes the consultation fee), chart prep, surgeon, anesthesia, anesthesiologist, x-ray, hospital, laboratory, operating room, operating room team, and recovery room. Everything except travel and hotel. This is cheap! Remember, this is not $11,250 for the surgeons... this is for everything, and this is about half of what this operation will cost you at any other hospital in the US. |
NOTE: We prefer email communication whenever possible.
Fill
out the two online forms. These forms are SECURE
and are encrypted for your safety (nobody can see your
information).
Our Patient History Form will ask you the most important questions about your parathyroid disease. Just fill it out and hit the 'submit' button.
Contact
your doctor's office and have them fax your records
to us, specifically your calcium levels, PTH levels, bone scans, office
notes, etc. This is usually the slowest part of the process. Our fax number is: 813-972-0077.
Click Here to PRINT A
REQUEST
FOR MEDICAL INFORMATION FORM Print this form, fill it out, and fax it to each
of your doctor's offices that have anything to do with your
calcium or parathyroid issues. Printing and sending this form to your
doctors is the
easiest way to get your records to us. Call them on the phone about a week
later to follow up.
Danielle
or Jodi will contact you within a
day or two after we receive these forms and tell you what else is
needed. They will email you when we get the information from your
doctors, and will email you again when your chart is completed and given
to one of our experts doctors. You can expect several emails from us keeping you informed as your
chart makes it way through our system.
Get ready for
your phone consultation with one of our surgeons. One of them will call
you to discuss your hyperparathyroidism and answer any questions you may have.
Remember, you will also spend time with two of our surgeons the morning of your
operation.
Book your
operation with our office. After you have your phone consultation,
the doctor will tell you to call Marisol to schedule your operation
(813-972-0000). Have your calendar with you when you call. You do not need
Dr Norman as your surgeon, he is not "better" than our other
guys.
Make your travel
arrangements. There is a lot more information about this on the bottom of
this page that tells how long you stay in Tampa, when to come, when you
can travel home, etc. We have hotels where most
of our patients stay.
Watch some of our
videos so you understand more about parathyroid disease and how this small
tumor affects many parts of your body. Watch the video of
our most recent operation. Watch the video that gives a Tour of the Parathyroid Center at Tampa
General Hospital so you can see where you are going and meet some of the
people who will take care of you. See all our videos at on our Video
Page!
You can call us on the phone if you need to (we love communicating with our patients via email). Our office hours for new patients are 9:00 am to 4:00 pm EST Monday through Friday. During all other hours you can leave a message and we will return your call. Did we mention that we prefer email communication and if you call we won't be able to help too much until we see your history form and your labs? Please do not call us with a generic question about parathyroid disease or to see if you can be a patient of ours. If you have parathyroid disease, you can be a patient of ours!
Office Phone Number: 813.972.0000
Office Fax Number: 813.972.0077
Address for sending items via Federal Express / UPS / US Mail:
| Office Address: Norman Parathyroid Center 2400 Cypress Glen Drive Wesley Chapel, FL 33544 |
Remember, the operations are performed at the new Parathyroid Center at Tampa General Hospital not at our office. Out of town patients do not come to the office, but meet the doctors at the hospital. |
All patients that travel to Tampa for parathyroid surgery will get a phone call
from either Dr Toro, Dr Lopez, Dr Politz, or Dr Norman and this call will
come after they can review all of your complete medical information
and before you make any travel arrangements. A complete chart includes:
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Remember, a Minimally Invasive Radioguided
Parathyroid operation (MIRP) can be
performed on ALL patients with parathyroid disease. If you do not
have a scan yet, do NOT get one. If your scan is negative, we still do
mini parathyroid surgery. Do not let people tell you that you can't
have mini-parathyroid surgery because your scan is negative. It may be
true for them, but they didn't invent the operation. Look folks, far
too much emphasis is put on the scan. STOP GETTING SCANS! Scans are
usually WRONG!
Use email whenever you can when communicating with Dr. Norman's
office.
JODIE and
DANIELLE:
are the New Patient
Coordinators:
Chart Preparation and Communication with Doctor's Offices. They
will help collect
information from your doctors and provide it to Jayme who is in charge
of organizing your information and charting all your calcium and PTH
levels into a format that allows us to compare you to thousands of people
who have come before you. These ladies work together to organizing your
chart--including your History
Form, your Insurance
Form, and the records we get from your doctor(s). This chart
will also include a patient check list and disease profile for you. Our
online forms are secure and encrypted to become extremely private;
they cannot be seen by any hackers or prying eyes. We use an outside
security company to host these secure forms and the secure
"certificate" can be seen on these forms. Fill out these
forms with complete trust that your information will remain private
using the most modern technology available. Read more about your
financial responsibilities on our ABN form...
you will be required to check the box that says you read this when you
fill out the online forms.
Parathyroid Surgery does not have to be
complicated!
We require the History and Insurance forms to be
filled out for all patients, so as soon as you fill them out, Jodie,
Danielle, or Jayme will email you to tell you that your forms have arrived and they
will remind you of the other information we need (x-rays, lab
reports, etc). Once all of your clinical information is put together,
Jodie, Danielle, or Jayme will email you a second time and tell you that
the chart has been completed and was given to one of our doctors for
review. It will usually take a couple of days to one week for one of
our expert doctors to review your chart (x-rays, etc) and go over
your case in detail and then call you on the phone to discuss your
parathyroid problem. They will tell you what they think the best
options are. Every patient who has to travel to get to Tampa will get
a personal phone call from one of our three experts. Make sure you
give us your correct phone numbers. Because of our volume, the doctors
call patients 7 days a week. They will make calls as early as 6:00 am
or as late as 10:30 pm -- only if you want them to. At the bottom of
the History form it will ask you if it is ok for them to call you
early in the am or late at night. If not, just say no and they will
call during regular hours.
Parathyroid surgery at the Norman Parathyroid
surgery clinic.
Verification of Insurance, Co-Pays and Deductibles. When
your chart to one of our doctors for their review and phone consultation, they will
also give your information to Becci who will work on your
insurance coverage and verification. If you are in our system and
have filled out our secure Insurance Form, then you can email Becci questions you may have about insurance coverage
email Becci. Trust us... this is very simple for almost all patients,
so do NOT think you need to email her. If there is a problem, you will
hear from us. Please know, all aspects of this operation are covered
by insurance just like any other surgeons' office, with the exception
of the consultation fee which is not covered by insurance. We take
Medicare, Cigna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Humana, Aetna, and LOTS of
others.
Parathyroid surgery at the Norman Parathyroid
surgery clinic.
MARISOL: Surgery
Scheduling. After your phone consultation with one of
our surgeons, you will be instructed to contact Marisol
via
email, or by direct phone call to the office
(813-972-0000). Marisol will help you choose a day for the operation
and help coordinate the entire visit once things have progressed to
this point. Have your calendar available when you call.
Book
Your Hotel. We work with a handful of hotels in
the area, but most closely with the two listed on our Hotel Page.
Watch the Mini Parathyroid Movie...
Watch the
Movie of the operation. We have movie
of this operation online and you should watch it. There is no
blood and it takes just under 13 minutes to look at all four
parathyroid glands and remove 2 tumors. It will help you understand where the incision is, and what
your Band-Aid looks like. You will see just how small and quick this
operation is. The movie is only 13 minutes long and is very educational.
Watch
the Video Tour of the Parathyroid Center at Tampa General
Hospital. See where you will valet park and meet the folks who will
take care of you.
Go
to our Learning By Videos page and watch all our cool videos.
Look at our map
of where all our patients come from. We've operated on your neighbors!
Download the CalciumPro app for your iPad or Android device. It will track your calcium, vitamin D, osteoporosis and PTH. You will even be able to tell if we cured you after we take out your parathyroid tumor! This award winning app should be purchased (Pro-Version is $5.99) by every person who has hyperparathyroidism. Period.
In
order for us to confirm that you do have parathyroid disease
(hyperparathyroidism) and that an operation is in your best interest (very
high chance of cure + very low chance of complications = successful
surgery), then we need some of your medical records sent to us. This
shouldn't be too hard and usually can be done by you over the phone. Most
of this cannot legally be done by us.
Send us a copy of all your lab work (and
doctor's notes). USE THIS FORM TO SPEED UP THE
PROCESS. Print this form and take it or fax it to your
doctor's office. Specifically we want to see what your calcium level is currently and
what it was in the recent past (and distant past if available). The
more calcium levels we have the better! We also need to know what your
parathyroid hormone is currently and in the past, and again, the more
we have the better...(but we will settle for just one or two parathyroid
hormone levels if they show what is expected). Other labs will
be helpful as well, so send them also... don't just send the
calcium and parathyroid hormone levels. We want a good, safe outcome,
so we need to know all of your important medical history. The doctor (or doctors) which has been working up your parathyroid
problem will have "clinic notes" about you where he/she has
been noting the parathyroid problem and other problems you may have as
well. Use the fax or mail addresses
below. Again, its better to send us too much than to send us only part
of the picture. Getting your doctor's office to
send your information to us is usually the slowest part of this entire
process.
Parathyroid surgery at the Norman Parathyroid
surgery clinic.
Do NOT send us a copy of your parathyroid sestamibi
scan. The vast majority of scans are wrong, so we don't want
to see yours. If you had one that said the tumor was in your chest, we may want to see it.
To do this, go to (or call) the hospital or clinic where you had the scan, and
request that it be sent to us. But for the rest of you, if you had a
scan that was read as "positive", we do NOT want to see it.
If they said it was negative, we do NOT want to see it. If
you haven't had a scan yet, do NOT get one. It will be a waste of time
and will be repeated here 30 minutes before you go to the operating
room. If you had a thyroid ultrasound test, do NOT send it; we
don't think ultrasounds are worthwhile and we will not look at it. If you don't have one, please do NOT get
one... it is not necessary to have these scans. If you had a "4-D CT scan" or a
"fusion Sestamibi scan" then please don't bother sending it
to us. This is "new" technology that is usually worthless and we will not
look at it. Do not get one of these. Better
yet, don't get ANY scans! REMEMBER: If your scan is NOT positive
you will still be able to have mini-parathyroid surgery with us. Do
not give up on mini-parathyroid surgery because you have a negative
scan. We are the only doctors in the world that do mini parathyroid
surgery on 100% of patients, and the only ones that do mini surgery
when your scan is negative. We do NOT require that you have a
scan before you come here. We prefer that you do NOT have a scan prior
to coming here. We will say this
one more time: Do not get a scan if you are coming here. It won't help
and we don't need it. It will waste your time and money. STOP GETTING
SCANS!
Parathyroid surgery at the Norman Parathyroid
surgery clinic.
Write a brief clinical history of yourself.
The is best done after you fill out the Secure History and
Insurance forms. Tell us your problems in your own words and correlate them to
what your doctor's have told you and the results of your lab tests.
Give us a picture of your overall health as well as your parathyroid
problems. You will be able to email this to our staff after they
contact you by email to tell you that your chart has been opened.
Parathyroid surgery at the Norman Parathyroid
surgery clinic. calcium problem.
Make
a list of your current medications. We will have you insert
this list into our online form. Its easy! Remember, our forms are
completely secure.
Parathyroid disease and parathyroid
problems treated by parathyroid s
Insurance coverage will be addressed
by one of our insurance experts. We take most types of insurance, including
Medicare. Since parathyroid surgery is an
outpatient procedure when performed by our doctors, most insurances
don't require pre-authorization. Medicare does not require
pre-authorization, nor does it require a referral from an
endocrinologist. Same for Aetna, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Humana,
Cigna, and most others. If you have a rare insurance that we don't take, we
will write you a "Letter of Medical Necessity" that you can
submit to obtain 'out of network' coverage. We have a SECURE Online
Insurance Form that makes the insurance submission and
verification process easy. When you submit this form we will confirm your eligibility with your insurance company.
Typically this is all you need to do. Insurance questions can
be addressed via email to becci@parathyroid.com.
Please do not send insurance questions to Kelly, she is a nurse. Read more
about your financial responsibilities on our ABN
form... you will be required to check the box that says you
read this when you fill out the online forms. Also, remember that the
insurance will pay for the operation--it does not pay for the
consultation. The consultation will be your responsibility as
described above.
Parathyroid disease and parathyroid
problems treated by parathyroid s
Pick a day for the procedure and then make
travel arrangements. Marisol will help you decide
which day will be best for you to come to Tampa and will book your
operation at that time. Drs Norman, Politz, Lopez, and Toro operate together
as a team of two on all
patients and typically perform 11-12 parathyroid operations every Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (some Fridays). You will need to arrive in Tampa the afternoon
before the operation and can leave the morning after (if you are
traveling by car you can go home immediately after leaving the
hospital). We have arrangements with several local
hotels where you can stay the night before and after. Usually it
is best if you get into town the afternoon or evening prior to the
operation. All pre-registration will take place over the telephone
and no pre-op testing is required.
.
oid disease and parathyroid problems treated by pa
The morning of the procedure you will
get a high resolution parathyroid sestamibi
scan. We do far more of these scans than anyone in the world, and
we feel very confident in saying we are the best in the world at this
scan. This scan will provide a good 3-dimensional view of where your
parathyroid tumor is most likely located (more importantly, it shows
us where it is NOT located). It also makes the
parathyroid tumor radioactive for a few hours so we can use our probe
to find the darn thing! This scan only takes between 10 and 20 minutes
to complete (it doesn't take us several hours like it does at other
places). All we use the scan for is to make sure the tumor is not in
your chest, and to make sure you don't have a big thyroid problem. We
do NOT use the scan to find the tumor. NOTE: Two
of our surgeons do the parathyroid operations together and we
never use residents who are learning to operate. Again, we don't have
residents doing the operations. We don't use resident
anesthesiologists either. There is nobody "learning" on
your operation. This is very important to you. Have you
watched the movie yet?
Parathyroid disease and parathyroid
problems treated by
Staying in town after the procedure.
If you want to stay in a hotel the night of the procedure, that is ok
and is what almost everybody who lives outside Florida does (if they
don't have family or friends in the central Florida area). Important!
As discussed in #7 above, The Norman Parathyroid Center has special
deals with several local
hotels which are fairly close by and quite inexpensive. It is RARE
for anybody to spend more than one night in Tampa after the
operation... and virtually nobody spends the night IN the hospital
after a parathyroid operation--we haven't done that for over 12 years. (NOTE:
If you have not read the "Testimonial
Page" yet, please do so. Bottom line: People traveling by car
can make plans to get in the car about 1.5 hours after the operation
and head on home. People traveling by airplane should spend the night
of the operation in a Tampa (or Orlando area) hotel and fly home the
following day.
Parathyroid Surgery. Parathyroid operation.
Parathyroid surgery. Parathyroid operation.
What if I have problems? Who do I call?
All of our patients get a detailed sheet of postoperative
instructions. All of our patients get calcium pills that they take beginning
within an hour of surgery. All patients get our doctor's home phone number and their cell phone numbers--and
are instructed to call them directly if they have any problems. One of
our doctors will call every patient the evening of the operation to
make sure you understand what was found and to answer any more
questions that you may have. Your doctors will get a copy of the
operative report and the pathology report within several days. All of
your doctors will also get a personal letter from our surgeons describing what was found, what was done, and what will likely be your
calcium requirement for years to come (based on their experience with
thousands of similar patients and the results of your bone density
scans). All your doctors will get a photograph of your tumor with
stickers on it describing the amount of hormone being produced by the
tumor in the operating room and the low amount of hormone in your blood prior to going home.
We are extremely organized and extremely good at communicating with
all of your doctors. The bottom line is this: We have done so many of these
operations that it has become a very simple out-patient procedure. We
have made the complex quite simple.
Parathyroid Surgery. Parathyroid operation.
Parathyroid surgery. Parathyroid operation.
When can I drive or fly home? When can I go back to
work? Virtually all patients are sent home about 1 to 2
hours after their parathyroid operation. We have not had a parathyroid
patient spend the night in the hospital in several years (more than
17,500 patients have gone home within 2.5 hours--it's that simple).
People who travel by car will usually travel home when they are
released (they should not drive for 24 hours, but they can be a
passenger). We prefer patients who are flying to wait until the
morning after the operation to travel by plane. As soon as you leave
the hospital you can eat anything you like... we encourage you to go
out to dinner and celebrate the first day of your new and improved
life! You will be given a bottle of calcium pills and instructions on how
often to take them. You will be taking Advil (Motrin, Ibuprofen) for
pain--that's it--so bring some with you if you like. You can go back
to work the day after the surgery, although some people take that day
off too. It is very rare for somebody to require more than 24 hours to
recover. The day after surgery you will have zero restrictions. Do
what you want. You may have a sore throat, but you can do
whatever you like (golf, exercise, etc).
Parathyroid surgery. expertise.
Follow Up. You do not come back to Tampa. You simply need to be seen by one of your regular doctors about two months after the operation, primarily to get your blood tested to measure your calcium and PTH levels. You do NOT need an endocrinologist. We provide you with the blood slip that you use to get the blood testing done in your home town about 2 months after the operation; we will forward those results to all your doctors. You see him/her about 1-2 weeks after you get your blood drawn. We will communicate this with your physician at the time of your operation. This visit with your doctor is simple since there are no stitches to remove (you just peel off your Band-Aid in one week's time). All the stitches we use dissolve in about 1 month's time. When you see your doctor, he/she will have received everything from us weeks earlier, all organized, photographed, and simple to interpret. Remember, a small quick operation is not any good if we have problems...the number one goal is SAFETY...nothing else is more important. You do not have to worry about coming to Tampa for surgery and then having a problem with nobody to take care of you. If this happened, we'd be out of business years ago. You have all our doctor's home phone numbers and cell phone numbers. We will be there for you.
Click
here to read the stories of over 1000 people who had parathyroid
surgery at the Norman Parathyroid Center.
It is also highly recommended that you watch the most recent video, and our first, more formal video of a mini-parathyroid operation by Dr Norman, which includes a short lecture so you can know more about what to expect from your mini-parathyroid surgery with us. Many people also enjoy watching the video tour of the Parathyroid Center and meeting the folks who will take care of you. The "tour" video shows you how to get to the hospital and where to park.
Why do we keep bringing up the quickness of our parathyroid operations? First of all... quick is dumb if it's not successful. The most important issue is safety, so always look at a surgeon's complication rates and success rates. If success rates are very high and complication rates are very low, then speed is the next most important factor. Speed is a function of repetition and competence. Quick operations have less dissection which means less pain and less bleeding. Less dissection decreases the potential for complications and damage to other neck structures like nerves. Quick operations require less anesthesia. People get much less sick and are able to get on with their lives very quickly after a 16-20 minute operation. Quick operations are tolerated by people very well. The best surgeons are often the quickest... but not always! When choosing your surgeon--regardless of who it is--you must always fall back on what is most important... success rates and complication rates. You will usually see that the best and most experienced surgeons have all three: Very High Success Rates, Extremely Few Complications, and Speed.
Note, we can't operate on everybody who has a parathyroid problem. But, if this was an easy operation to perform we wouldn't do 20 times the amount of operations that Mayo Clinic does in a year, or 30 times more than Duke University, Johns Hopkins and Harvard do in a year--- you get the picture. That doesn't mean that there aren't great surgeons at these institutions, it simply means that you need to pick your surgeon wisely--one that performs parathyroid surgery at least several times per week. If parathyroid surgery was easy for every surgeon to perform, we wouldn't be in business because nobody would have the need to travel across the country to have us do their operation. If parathyroid surgery were easy, surgeons from dozens of major universities from around the US wouldn't come here for us to remove their tumor--or the tumor from their wife. Yet we operate on a surgeon several times per week and a doctor at least once per DAY. However, parathyroid surgery is easy if you do it a dozen times every day. Parathyroid surgery is NOT easy if you do it once every couple of weeks. Dr Norman has done over 18,500 parathyroid operations, and Dr Politz over 14,000. Dr Lopez is right behind. They work together so you have the three most experienced parathyroid surgeons in the world. We can't do everybody's operation, but please, be wise and pick a surgeon that does parathyroid surgery at least once per week. When you talk to one of our doctors, they will invariably tell you: "Don't make this hard, it is not hard. This is easy!". It is easy for us. This is all we do. Check out our MAP, it shows where our patients come from. Some of them live within a few blocks of you!
Often parathyroid patients will need a part of their thyroid removed during their thyroid operation (about 22% of our past 14,000 patients had a thyroid problem that we addressed with some form of thyroid nodule removal during their parathyroid operation). Nearly 85% of patients with a parathyroid tumor will also have a thyroid nodule--it is very common to have thyroid nodules (heck our surgeons have thyroid nodules themselves!). Most thyroid nodules are ho-hum, benign, normal lumps and bumps that we all get as we get older. Most thyroid nodules should be left alone. We look at every patient's thyroid gland (Dr Norman has seen more thyroid glands than any other person in the world--he sees 13 of them every day). If a thyroid nodule is worrisome in any way and needs to be removed, then we remove it. It is NOT A BIG DEAL. Almost all patients that require the removal of a thyroid nodule or even an entire thyroid lobe (one half of the thyroid) will go home within 2.5 hours. Patients with thyroid problems in addition to parathyroid problems are not treated differently from parathyroid patients who do not have thyroid problems... same anesthesia, same incision, etc. We remove thyroid nodules and thyroid masses 2-5 times per day in patients that have thyroid nodules in addition to their parathyroid tumor. It usually adds about 2-5 minutes to the operation. Thus, if you are told "you cannot have mini-parathyroid surgery because you have a thyroid nodule", you can tell that doctor: "nonsense!" We do this all day long, every day. This simply depends on the skill and experience of the surgeon. Occasionally we will have a patient spend the night if we have to remove a very large thyroid goiter during the parathyroid operation (about 1 in 700 patients spends the night in the hospital). Patients over 250 pounds will sometimes need an incision about 1.5 inches long. However, almost all patients that have a thyroid nodule can have their thyroid nodule removed at the time of their mini-parathyroid operation--still through a 1-inch incision, still with a near 100% cure rate, still expecting to go home in 2 hours, and still without the need for general endotracheal anesthesia. The bottom line is safety... not speed... and not statistics. All patients are treated as individuals and get personalized care that is tailored to their specific problem and their overall health. Nobody has seen more of this stuff than us. Nobody has seen more thyroid nodules than us... we deal with thyroid nodules all day long! One final note: we do not have a 100% cure rate, but there is no question that our cure rate is the highest in the world.
We really like our patients to watch the video of Dr Norman operating while Dr Politz narrates. Is is a great teaching video that answers a lot of questions. These are bloodless operations. Simple, clean, with a very small incision.
 | Read what our patients say about their
parathyroid surgery experience: Click Here |
| Local Hotels that most of our patients stay at (Discount rates, 0.5 miles away): Click Here |
| More about our center: Click Here |
| See our MAP of where all
our patients come from. Some are probably your neighbors! |
This page was last updated: 05/09/2013
Directions and Video to get to the
hospital for your operation:
For driving directions to the Parathyroid
Center at Tampa General Hospital click
here.
For a Map of how to get to the Parathyroid Center at Tampa General
Hospital click
here.
BEST: For Video
Tour of how to drive and where to park when you come for your
operation click
here.
Parathyroid Surgery Made Easy--How to Become Our
Patient.
Setting Up an Out of Town or Out of State Visit at the