Our office will often be contacted by patients asking for second opinion consultations. These consults are typically requested by patients who have had hip or knee replacements done elsewhere or locally by other surgeons. Recovery from joint replacement surgery can often take a full year or more. For this reason, our office policy is to only see patients for second opinions who are more than one year out from their surgery. If you, or the individual that you are contacting us about, has had surgery within the past 12 months, our recommendation is that you return to your original surgeon for follow-up to address any ongoing concerns.
For patients who had surgery more than one year ago and have concerns about their outcomes, our practice has a protocol in place to help facilitate this type of request for consult. Our office will require:
Updated x-ray imaging (within 6 months) of the joint that has previously been replaced;
Previous surgical records (a.k.a. Operative Notes);
Implants records (to understand which prostheses were implanted);
Any blood work or other tests that may have been performed related to the surgery.
The process to collect all of this data can sometimes be time-consuming. Once all the data has been collected, it will be reviewed personally by Dr. Kaper to determine whether an appointment for consultation will be scheduled. We request that you are patient as we work through this process for you. Our office will contact you once the assessment is complete.
We ask all such patients to understand that these assessments are made on an individual basis- if Dr. Kaper feels that his expertise can potentially help a patient, an appointment will be made. If, based on Dr. Kaper's assessment, no further surgery appears necessary, we do not want to waste anyone's time, money or effort in scheduling appointments.
If you have any specific questions or concerns regarding our office policy in this regard please do not hesitate to contact the office.