There are three inevitable truths about going to the Emergency Room:
Luckily, the Emergency Room isn’t your only option for serious care. Enter ZoomCare Super: ZoomCare’s ER alternative. Staffed with board-certified emergency physicians, Super can handle many of the reasons folks go to the Emergency Room: broken bones, x-rays, severe abdominal pain, and much more.
Compared with a typical Emergency Room, ZoomCare Super is affordable, fast, and stress-free. In most cases, patients can get in and out in 60 minutes or less. (Stack that against the 2 hours and 16 minutes it takes for a typical ER visit.) Even better? The average cost of a Super visit is $410—a whole lot less than the $2,096 they can expect to pay elsewhere.
While ZoomCare Super can treat 80% of the reasons that adults and kids go to the ER, sometimes, patients do need to go to the hospital—typically for procedures like appendectomies. When that happens, we can help them avoid the high cost and hassle of the ER by arranging a direct admission to the facility of their choice.
Our direct admit program helps patients bypass the hospital Emergency Room altogether, and can make a painful situation a lot less stressful.
To highlight this unique benefit of ZoomCare Super, we had a socially-distanced sitdown with Dr. Daniel Tseng, a leading Portland surgeon who frequently operates on Super patients at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center.
I completed my training at OHSU in 2006. I did a two-year fellowship in minimally invasive surgery. I’ve been in practice for 14 years. My specialty group practice is called Northwest Minimally Invasive Surgery, and we are affiliated with Legacy Good Sam and Providence St. Vincent. Our objective is to serve our local community by providing minimally invasive surgery to patients in the Portland area.
It’s when you do traditional general surgery through a very small incision. I can do 95% of surgeries through incisions that are less than ½ inch in size. There are several incisions that I use; a lot are done through the belly button. The main benefits to minimally invasive surgery are less pain associated with the smaller incision, very small scars, a shorter hospitalization, less risk for infection, and a faster recovery and return to work. It’s done often as an outpatient surgery, meaning you don’t have to spend the night in the hospital.
Gallbladders and appendixes are the two most common surgeries we do for Super patients. We’re also seeing more hernias, which could be work related or due to heavy activity and lifting. I see about one or two Super patients per week. I share a call schedule with my partner, Dr. Jeff Watkins, and some other general surgeons at Legacy Good Sam, and so whoever is “on call” will see the patients referred from Super.
The patient is seen by the Super provider, who takes the patient's history, does a physical exam, and orders any lab tests or imaging (ultrasound or CT are commonly done to diagnose appendicitis). Once the diagnosis is confirmed, then the Super provider either calls our office or sends us the patient through the Legacy transfer center. We try to do the surgery as an outpatient procedure and send the patient home on the same day. Depending on the time of the day and the operating room schedule at Legacy Good Sam, it can take as little as one hour or up to half a day. The last patient that Super sent me - I took the patient into the OR within an hour.
There’s a convenience factor. It’s more convenient for these patients to be seen at ZoomCare Super. They can be seen the same day vs. having to wait weeks to see their primary care doctor. From my perspective being able to skip the Emergency Room is the biggest benefit of Super. Having all the patient’s labs and imaging already completed is really helpful as the accepting surgeon.
You’re welcome!
