I was wondering if anyone here has gone through Bay Area Kaiser for Top surgery recently? They wont show results unless you go in for a consultation and sometimes wont show at all. If anyone has any experience with Gurjala, Simonds, or Tong I would love to hear about it (they might be the only three right now).
Thanks!

Kaiser is that medi-cal thing right ?


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Quote from: ElliottP on June 09, 2016, 03:29:30 PM
I was wondering if anyone here has gone through Bay Area Kaiser for Top surgery recently? They wont show results unless you go in for a consultation and sometimes wont show at all. If anyone has any experience with Gurjala, Simonds, or Tong I would love to hear about it (they might be the only three right now).
Thanks!

Usually I lurk here once in a while but came here to say a few things. I know it's more than a month old and all, but I don't want to make a new topic if I'm just going to respond to these specific posts anyway so...here we go:

I'm planning on going in for a consultation, so no surgery done yet. When I was trying to schedule my appointment, I learned Dr. Gurjala is the only one who will show you photos of his patients. The others won't.

And those surgeons are the only three at Kaiser. Anooshian is retiring and won't take anymore patients, and Dr. Yokoo (my first choice) is on "indefinite medical leave". The lady helping me schedule the appt wouldn't say why, but it's likely Yoko won't be back for a very long while.

Dr. Simonds is the oldest and has been with Kaiser the longest (since 1994) while the other two joined in 2014 according to their About Me pages on KP's website. That's always something to consider.

Quote from: TinaVane on June 16, 2016, 12:55:25 PM
Kaiser is that medi-cal thing right ?

Medi-cal is a welfare/insurance thing if I recall correctly. Kaiser Permanente just owns the hospitals and pharmacies in CA.

EDIT: Found this thread at the top of Google Results while googling Dr. Gurjala for the umpteenth time before my appointment, in case anyone else was wondering. I've already done research (actually found nothing) prior to scheduling my appointment, but I still find it weird how a bunch of surgeons in San Franscisco have little to no mention of their names online (except Yokoo and Anooshian), so I google them once in a great while to see if there are any updates on them on the internet.

Quote from: Desano on August 08, 2016, 11:33:24 PM
Usually I lurk here once in a while but came here to say a few things. I know it's more than a month old and all, but I don't want to make a new topic if I'm just going to respond to these specific posts anyway so...here we go:

I'm planning on going in for a consultation, so no surgery done yet. When I was trying to schedule my appointment, I learned Dr. Gurjala is the only one who will show you photos of his patients. The others won't.

And those surgeons are the only three at Kaiser. Anooshian is retiring and won't take anymore patients, and Dr. Yokoo (my first choice) is on "indefinite medical leave". The lady helping me schedule the appt wouldn't say why, but it's likely Yoko won't be back for a very long while.

Dr. Simonds is the oldest and has been with Kaiser the longest (since 1994) while the other two joined in 2014 according to their About Me pages on KP's website. That's always something to consider.

However, I'm seeing Gurjala first since he has photos to show, but I might schedule another consultation with the other surgeons to see who I like the most before taking the final plunge. No promises though.

Medi-cal is a welfare/insurance thing if I recall correctly. Kaiser Permanente just owns the hospitals and pharmacies in CA.

EDIT: Found this thread at the top of Google Results while googling Dr. Gurjala for the umpteenth time before my appointment, in case anyone else was wondering. I've already done research (actually found nothing) prior to scheduling my appointment, but I still find it weird how a bunch of surgeons in San Franscisco have little to no mention of their names online (except Yokoo and Anooshian), so I google them once in a great while to see if there are any updates on them on the internet.

Sorry to interrupt this topic. However, I need to welcome Desano to the site.  Thanks for sharing your information with us on this topic. Hope you find what you are looking for here.

I also want to share some links with you. They are mostly welcome information and the rules that govern the site. If you have not had a chance to look through them, please take a moment:

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Once again, welcome to Susan's. Look around, ask questions and join in.

With warmth,

Joanna

Hey Desano,

Thanks for replying about this.
I've been doing a lot of digging for these surgeons and have come back with some interesting finds.
1) Dr. Gurjala had a patient who had a very upsetting result. I'm sure you can find it on Google. Basically it ruled out him and his entire team for me. I don't mean to scare you but it is something to know about. However, someone else did speak highly of him too.
2) Dr. Yokoo is back now but has a major backlog so she will be hard to book, however it is possible.  I have found a number of results online for her and her work is pretty good. I've only seen good things.
3) I had a consultation with Dr. Simonds and he seemed very nice. I was a little put off that he wouldn't answer more questions via email after my consultation though. It seemed like he had something to hide. However, I found someone online who went through him and the results look great. He said that everything was awesome and he is really happy.
4) I called today to book a date with Dr. Simonds. The wait could be a really long time for Yokoo and when I learned that I knew that I couldn't wait any more to get the ball rolling. Hopefully they have a date when I requested it!
5) The key is definitely to just keep searching. Sometimes things pop up that weren't there before. Especially on instagram if you use it. For whatever reason it blocks you out from viewing things sometimes.

I wish you all the best!

Quote from: ElliottP on August 10, 2016, 05:49:04 PM
Hey Desano,

Thanks for replying about this.
I've been doing a lot of digging for these surgeons and have come back with some interesting finds.
1) Dr. Gurjala had a patient who had a very upsetting result. I'm sure you can find it on Google. Basically it ruled out him and his entire team for me. I don't mean to scare you but it is something to know about. However, someone else did speak highly of him too.
2) Dr. Yokoo is back now but has a major backlog so she will be hard to book, however it is possible.  I have found a number of results online for her and her work is pretty good. I've only seen good things.
3) I had a consultation with Dr. Simonds and he seemed very nice. I was a little put off that he wouldn't answer more questions via email after my consultation though. It seemed like he had something to hide. However, I found someone online who went through him and the results look great. He said that everything was awesome and he is really happy.
4) I called today to book a date with Dr. Simonds. The wait could be a really long time for Yokoo and when I learned that I knew that I couldn't wait any more to get the ball rolling. Hopefully they have a date when I requested it!
5) The key is definitely to just keep searching. Sometimes things pop up that weren't there before. Especially on instagram if you use it. For whatever reason it blocks you out from viewing things sometimes.

I wish you all the best!

Wow. So much happens in one month (my phone calls were done roughly a month ago). Awesome that Yokoo's back despite the backlog.

Thanks for the warning on Gurjala though. I did a quick search and I think I found what you mean on ->-bleeped-<-. I don't expect to get my surgery done anytime soon either but holy heck did I dodge a bullet there.

And good luck to you too! Getting stuff done in Cali is a B :/

Elliot and Desano - did either of you get your surgeries yet?  I just got my approval for a double incision mastectomy through Kaiser today.  My choices are Gurjala, Simonds, Tong, McCloskey, Xu and Le.  I've found helpful reviews for Gurjala, Tong and Xu, but I can'g find anything for Simonds, McCloskey and Le.  I'd love to see pics of their work.  Any leads?

Quote from: tropix on December 06, 2017, 07:51:46 PM
Elliot and Desano - did either of you get your surgeries yet?  I just got my approval for a double incision mastectomy through Kaiser today.  My choices are Gurjala, Simonds, Tong, McCloskey, Xu and Le.  I've found helpful reviews for Gurjala, Tong and Xu, but I can'g find anything for Simonds, McCloskey and Le.  I'd love to see pics of their work.  Any leads?

I hope you're still using the site to see my reply, but here's an update so far: No, I haven't got surgery yet. I've never heard of McCloskey or Le, so I'm no help there.

But here's a Youtube video of a patient's feedback and experience with their surgery with Winnie Tong: