Dr. Lee David Richer, MD

The cliff note summary is: TOP NOTCH ACROSS THE BOARD, from Dr. Richter’s excellent beside manners, knowledge & skill, to his office staff Meredith and surgical assistant Kelsey who truly treat you with care & compassion as well, to other aspects of the experience such as: ease of booking an appointment, cleanliness of the facilities, appropriate wait time, and NO trying to ‘milk’ the patient for extra office visits. As for the specifics of my situation: I went to Dr. Richer for removal of a foreign body (namely, a 1/2 cm fragment of Mesquite thorn that had broken off & remained lodged in the base of my 2nd toe for just over a year, after I’d stepped on a 3 inch long thorn while doing work in my pasture). You’d think that a doctor with a DPM would be capable of the task at hand, but to my surprise and frustration, it was proving to be a VERY difficult task to find a podiatrist who could: a) do the foreign body removal procedure; b) be affordable in terms of my time and my money (my… insurance plan did not cover most docs who do this procedure), AND c) finding a doc who had experience & success doing it in a LESS / MINIMALLY invasive manner. Many of the podiatrist practices that I called would not even give me so much as a yes/no answer as to whether or not the doctor(s) in the practice even did foreign body removal and simply asserted that if I wanted to find out, I’d need to book a consultation (which ranged from $100-250 and would have been out of pocket since my insurance would not cover it). And of those practices where the secretaries DID actually give me some basic insight, things were not looking promising: a greater # of practices than I thought simply did not even do foreign body removal; and of those that did, most would either tell me that: the doctor ONLY does such procedures under General anesthesia in a hospital type setting OR that I’d need to pay $100-250 for a consultation (which was something I could not afford to do) in order to be told whether or not the doc would do such a procedure under local or general. Dr. Richer’s practice was the ONLY practice I came across (after about 8 hours of calls) where I got a VERY GOOD feeling from his secretary, Meredith, who reminded me that, (while each situation is different and nothing is a guarantee), if it made me feel better, Dr. Richer not only has had success with removing various foreign bodies BUT ALSO in doing so LOCALLY right in his office, WITHOUT the need to resort to a hospital setting/general anesthesia. This gave me a ray of hope, but due to the fact that it was about a 3 hr one-way drive, I did not book an appointment immediately and instead went to the follow-up appointment with the podiatrist in my area that was covered by my insurance. However, after he offered me ONLY 1 ‘option’ (which was surgical removal in a hospital setting under general anesthesia… which would take about a full 1 month just to book, and then involve post-op instructions such as no driving for 3 weeks / NO caring for my horses during that 3 week period either), I decided to give Dr. Richer’s office a call back… and I cannot be happier & more thankful that I did! Meredith who took my call a few weeks prior remembered me and when I told her what I was up against, she squeezed me in for an appointment the very next day AND booked it leaving enough time so that if Dr. Richer felt he could do the surgery locally, it would be done during my FIRST visit (and this is exactly how it played out). I was beyond nervous but Dr. Richer, Kelsey, & Meredith were very calming and took extreme care and time to explain everything… AND Dr. Richer was successful in finding & removing the fragment of thorn! Despite having a few stitches (which was unavoidable given how deep the thorn fragment was imbedded), I had 0 post-op pain (and did not take pain meds of any sort). There are still certain restrictions such as not getting the area wet for a few weeks and walking only as needed to allow the area to heal… but NONE of the hefty restrictions that the first doc had mentioned (in fact, I made the 3 hr drive back home just fine and then went on to feed my horses that night without any help). The incision Dr. Richer made was also a fraction of the size that the first doctor was planning to make. The self pay rates with Dr. Richer were also as good as it gets, especially for such a top notch doctor. Ironically, my overall out-of-pocket costs were less than I had I gone with the first doctor (which was covered by my insurance) because I did not have to hire someone to drive me to work and live on my property to care for my horses / help me get around for 2-3 weeks… not to mention having dodged a whole host of other potential risks that are associated with general anesthesia! Needless to say, words cannot express how happy and thankful I am to have found Dr. Richer and his amazing team!!!