@Cazmagic,
Thank you for the scoop about Dr. Osborne. It’s a shame he doesn’t take insurance & then has such astronomical fees for his service. Dr. Cognetti is also a great choice, & he does take insurance, and his cash price for those who are uninsured is only about $4k which includes anesthesia & outpatient surgery center.
Dr. Samji did both of my ES surgeries (2014/15) & I’ve had excellent results, however, we’ve had some members who haven’t had such great outcomes after his surgeries & some have found in follow-up CT scans that he didn’t remove as much styloid as he claimed to. Because of my experience w/ him, I highly recommend him, but if you choose to have surgery w/ him, make sure you get to actually see your styloid post op so you can see how much was removed. He will not take pics for you, & he doesn’t do the nice image w/ the styloid lying against a ruler. You have to ask one of the surgery center nurses to please retrieve it so you can get a look before it gets sent off to the lab for testing.
He is an excellent surgeon & knows what he’s doing so it’s hard to explain why the inconsistencies in surgical outcomes. I recently had a CT scan because of some recurrent ES type symptoms, but my styloids look to be non-existent so this problem is coming from elsewhere. Based on that info, he did great by me.
I know you said you’ve tried contacting a couple of the ES docs in your state but got no response back. If you weren’t persistent in calling, you might want to continue that route as well to save your self the time & cost of traveling. Many of our members have had trouble getting in contact w/ doctors offices recently because everyone seems to be short staffed after the COVID shut down.
Here are 3 who have been highly recommended by our members:
•Dr Rui Fernandes, University of Florida and Shands Hospital, 653-1 8th St W, Jacksonville, (904) 383-1018, https://hscj.ufl.edu
•Dr. Anthony Bunnell, UF, 653 W. 8th St., Jacksonville FL, (904) 244-3216 https://ufhealthjax.org/doctors/3099/anthony-bunnell/
•Dr. Phillip Pirgousis, Mayo Clinic, 4500 San Pablo Rd S, Jacksonville, FL, (904) 953-2000