FAQs

This depends entirely upon what procedure is performed. In general, bruising is gone by 7-10 days, and most patients tell us their procedures are essentially painless. Most never fill the pain medication prescriptions we routinely give them.

Most of our procedures are performed under mild intravenous sedation or simple local injection anesthetic. We have perfected needle administration of anesthetics to the point that it is so painless. Our practice has long been a leader in getting away from general anesthesia, unless desired by the patient. We have shown that many procedures performed routinely under general anesthesia in other practices can be performed safely, comfortably, and successfully with intravenous sedation alone.

Through lectures, publications, and hands-on training, we have taught these techniques to thousands of other physicians across the globe.

Eyelid surgery is the last step in reconstruction after a person is in the inactive phase of the disease, because orbital surgery may change eye muscle movement, and eye muscle surgery may alter eyelid position.

As we are specialists, and this is all that we do, we feel it is fair to set our fees at the 75th percentile for all who perform these procedures in our location. For our training, certification, and experience, this makes are charges highly competitive.

In fact, if we perform surgery in our in-office surgery suite, there are no “facility fees,” making our costs far lower than others.

We also have contracts with over a hundred health insurance plans and offer deep discounts for our services. Therefore, as many of the procedures we perform are covered by insurance, the charges vary according to the plan.

Unfortunately, most insurance plans do not cover purely cosmetic surgery. Therefore, in such situations, we ask all professional fees be paid in advance of the surgery. If you are from out of the country, we request cash, bank check, or money order.

We work very hard to keep wait times below 15 minutes, but we are not always successful.

All it takes is one person to arrive with a life-threatening or vision-threatening problem that we had not been expecting, or one emergent call from a physician operating nearby who has gotten in over his head, for us to fall 45 minutes to an hour behind.

There are two things you can do to minimize your wait:

First, when you call for an appointment, tell us as much as you can about why you are coming to see us. This helps us to schedule our day more precisely.

Second, before you leave your house or hotel, call us to be sure we are running on time. Things may have changed by the time you arrive, but chances are better that your wait will be short.

Finally, if you do have to wait, be assured that when we do see you, we will take as much time with you as you need.

We always work very hard to be available to people in a timely fashion. However, at certain times of the year, or when we leave town to lecture, even though we often extend our clinic hours, we can get terribly backed up.
If you are an established patient with a problem, our policy is to see you the same day.
If you are new to our practice, there are several ways you can get in to see us sooner:

1.)If you are being referred by a physician for a medical problem, have your doctor call our doctors personally to explain the situation.
2.) If you can be available on short notice, ask our receptionist to put you on our “short call list” and provide a pager or cell phone number where you can be reached. This is an excellent way to have your surgery moved up as well.
3.) Be flexible about which physician you will see. When one of our doctors is out of the country lecturing, for example, his schedule may fall behind by several weeks, and his partner may work extended hours during this time. Our doctors frequently work interchangeably, so if you are willing to be seen by one for a pre-surgical consultation with the other, we can often accommodate you more quickly.
4.)Finally, don’t hesitate to explain why your situation puts you in a time bind, and perhaps our receptionist will be able to work some magic.

Your privacy is of paramount importance to us, and we have designed our offices with this in mind.

In general, our waiting rooms are small and well sequestered from the view of people walking by. Our sign-in sheets are designed so no one can see the names of our other visitors.

If you wish for further anonymity, request a first appointment time and ask to be brought back to one of our examination rooms as soon as you arrive.

Personal security personnel may accompany you into the exam and procedure rooms, but if you desire to have the entire office surveyed, you will need to schedule your appointment when there will be no other patients, since we cannot allow your security personnel to infringe upon the privacy of other people.

Many people and physicians use the terms Grave’s Disease and Hashimoto’s Disease incorrectly. Typically, physicians use the term Grave’s Disease to mean a hyperthyroid condition and Hashimoto’s to mean a hypothyroid condition. Both are caused by autoimmune antibodies, some of which stimulate the thyroid causing hyperthyroidism and some of which inhibit the thyroid causing hypothyroidism. Still, many people can have multiple autoimmune antibodies, we prefer the term autoimmune thyroid disorder to encompass all of these conditions.

Steroid therapy may be effective in masking the inflammatory phase of Thyroid Eye Disease and partially shrinking the muscle swelling; however, the side effects from steroids are very common with continued treatment and other long term treatments or surgeries should be considered.