1 /5 David Toombs: Avoid Nicole Tapia MD for inguinal hernia multiple revision repairs. She operated on me in December 2023. Less than 12 days later, she performed the post-op exam and concluded verbally, in front of her medical resident, that she was either detecting a pocket of fat or a recurrence.
I was too stunned to speak but later realized that she suggested a natural recurrence less than 12 days after I was on her surgical table. Furthermore, when I checked the exam notes in MyChart a month later, I saw that she omitted any mention of the physical exam and what she detected, and she concluded the operation was a complete success. This lack of integrity and accountability was immediately concerning.
While my hernia pain is better than it was before the operation, there is still clear testicular discomfort, especially after lifting anything above 15lbs. Reasearch indicates that Tapias specialty is colon excision, so I am at a loss as to why she is performing inguinal multiple revisions repairs.
I might have pursued this, but then I was offered in Feb. 2024 a $17,000 bill from Methodist Hospital after the surgery because the hospital failed to execute the insurance documentation correctly. It took over 3 months to get that cost waived, and it was unnecessary stress that could have been avoided had MH executed the insurance paperwork correctly.
Bottomline - before using MH Surgical Center, I would get an assurance from them in writing that all costs are covered by insurance. Additionally, and I cannot stress this enough, I would not recommend a multiple revision inguinal hernia repair from Nicole Tapia. I failed to ask her specialty and success rate before the operation, and a patient should never omit this question. Also - bear in mind that her official success rate is inaccurate - if she was dishonest on the results of my operation, she has likely been dishonest about the outcomes of other procedures.
Many times I have thought about letting Aetna know so they can recover some of their funds from this operation in litigation.