Dr. Gaurav Upadhyay

Does anyone have any experience with Dr Gaurav Upadhyay affifiated with the University of Chicago Medical Center.

I see no evidence in the Medicare data that Dr. Upadhyay was doing ablations as of 2015 (the latest data available). He only finished his fellowship in electrophysiology in 2014, so it's no surprise he wasn't doing ablations in 2015. Looking at his profiles at the U. of Chicago, his twitter profile, his publications, and so forth, his expertise appears to be mainly in the pacer world. If he's doing ablations at all, it appears he's relatively new to the practice. I don't quite understand why he would be recommended to you. I'm sure he's a fine clinical EP, but from what I can find I would not consider him for an ablation if I were in your shoes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2021 08:58PM by Carey.

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Carey
I see no evidence in the Medicare data that Dr. Upadhyay was doing ablations as of 2015 (the latest data available).
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can you explain how that works or what that database tells you? I just searched for example for my congenital cardiologist.. said no records. he is at the UofMichigan hospitals and has been for years and years. I must be using it wrong? I did find his name. I also know a friend who is an MD and sees a TON of medicare patients showed up but said she had like 11 patients in 2015. I would say she has hundreds.. just trying to see how this works. I also looked up an EP I am seeing- didn't see any. maybe it is how they bill?? and who they bill under.. I looked under Natale and that database didn't seem to show any for him. just trying to understand how to use that database in a useful manner.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2021 10:26PM by bettylou4488.

I used the link and typed in dr Andrea Natale and got no records

The search form is fairly primitive. Enter the doctor's last name only, nothing else. A list of doctors with that last name will appear. Look through the list, pic the doc you're looking for, and click the search button.

Now look through the list of procedures that comes up for that doctor. You're looking for ICD codes related to catheter ablations. (Someone posted a list of the relevant ICD codes here recently. Wish I could find it.) But you should see descriptions related to inserting catheters, destruction of tissue, and words like that.

The data aren't complete and won't list as many procedures as the doctor has actually done, but this will give you a general sense of whether the doctor actually does many ablations or not. I think the last time I looked it said Natale was doing a hundred or so per year, and that's probably 30% of how many he actually does. So scale your findings for other doctors accordingly.

And no, it's not limited to Medicare patients only as you'll see that it shows a total count and a Medicare count. And some doctors may be missing entirely because of the way their center bills, but if your doctor shows up, it's legitimate information that gives you a pretty reliable, independent measure of how many ablation procedures the doctor actually does.

Carey

ok I see you don't put in the first name. but I can't get to one of my docs.. I tried scrolling several ways. If you have a common last name and a first name that doesn't start with AB or C.

You can type the last name plus a space and then start typing the first name. A list narrowed down to matching what you've entered so far will appear.

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Carey
(Someone posted a list of the relevant ICD codes here recently. Wish I could find it.) But you should see descriptions related to inserting catheters, destruction of tissue, and words like that.

Is this what you are looking for? [www.afibbers.org]

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GeorgeN
Is this what you are looking for? [www.afibbers.org]

Yes, thank you!

GeorgeN, I think the codes you are referencing are on page two under my post called Persistent Afib.

That's what George linked to. Just click his link to go right to the message.