Information for MOAs on making referrals to the Vascular Surgeon.
As our office is 100% EMR, please fax in all referrals, paper copies of faxed referrals are not required. If you do not hear back from our office in one week after faxing a referral, please call our office.
We triage our referrals daily and appointments are also given according to the urgency of the patient’s condition. Once we have set the appointment we will fax you back a letter with the appointment date/time and ask that the patient call us to confirm the appointment.
When preparing the referral, it is important to provide as up to date information as possible. If you have copies of relevant reports (CT scans/ultrasounds/blood work) please include those as well as any relevant report from specialists.
Patients
Patients seeing the Vascular Surgeon, except those being seen for varicose veins, will require a creatinine and eGFR to be done within 30 days of their appointment. Diabetic patients should have an A1c done within 90 days.
Feel free to direct your patients to our website, there is a wealth of information here that will help the patient understand their condition prior to seeing the surgeon.
Information regarding referral for arterial disease (Intermittent claudication, rest pain, tissue loss and diabetic vascular disease)
The most helpful diagnostic test for these patients is a Doppler assessment, often referred to as a resting doppler. This provides a graphic assessment of flow patterns at several levels in the legs and a reading of the ankle and brachial pressures (ABI) as well as pressures in the great toe. The latter is very valuable in diabetics or other patients with non compressible tibial blood vessels.
Due to manpower issues in the ultrasound department at the Royal Jubilee, there are growing waits for this test. An alternative would be to do an ankle/ brachial pressure in the office with a hand held Doppler and a standard BP cuff. CT angiograms are helpful and necessary in planning the type of intervention that may be carried out but the Doppler values are a more important functional assessment and should be considered as a first line assessment.
Information regarding Endovascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR)
This procedure offers a less traumatic approach to repairing abdominal aortic aneurysm and thoracic aneurysms but requires follow up every 6 months for life. The patient requires a contrast based CT to evaluate graft placement stability and the presence or absence of endoleaks (read post surgery care information). Please help us to ensure these people are not lost to follow up.