Choosing a hemorrhoid clinic in Montreal, sceptically
Written knowing it will be read about us as well as about everybody else, which is the only way a page like this is worth anything. Five questions, and four claims that should slow you down.
What grade am I, and how was that established. What are the alternatives to what you are recommending, and why were they set aside. How many sessions, and what happens if it needs more. What will this cost me in total, not per visit. And what would make you refer me elsewhere instead.
The last of those five is the most informative and the least often asked. A clinic that can describe the findings that would move you to a colonoscopy or another specialty has thought about the boundary of its own competence, which is what you actually want.
All five should be answerable in terms of your own examination rather than in general terms. The first visit page says what a visit here produces, red flags is our published answer to the fifth question, and what treatment costs is our answer to the fourth.
Choosing in Montreal
Four warning claims
Claims that should slow you down in Montreal
A single success rate
Providers publish about ninety, over ninety-five and more than ninety-nine percent for the same procedure, all self-reported.
A price before an examination
The number depends on session count and your plan, so a firm figure quoted beforehand is a guess or a hook.
Banding offered for anything
A band is for internal grades one to three. Offered for an external hemorrhoid or a fissure, it is the wrong tool.
Reassurance about bleeding
Being told bleeding is nothing before anyone has looked is the single claim on this list that can cost you most.
Judging an answer
What a good answer sounds like
Specific rather than general. A clinic saying that your grade three with two columns involved suits banding, and that surgery was set aside because the prolapse still reduces, has told you something you can weigh. One saying banding is very effective has told you nothing about you.
Willing to name a limit. Every honest answer on this subject has an edge to it: a figure that is not sourced, a procedure that would not suit you, a case that belongs elsewhere. Answers with no edges are usually marketing with the edges filed off.
And checkable wherever it can be. A clinic that will tell you where a number came from has handed you something you can go and verify, which is a different kind of claim from one you simply have to accept. What the evidence says sets out where the published sources agree and disagree, what treatment costs does the same for money, and red flags is the edge we publish.
FiveQuestions to ask
FourClaims to question
When would you referMost informative
Our answers
Where this clinic answers in Montreal
The pages where each of the five questions already has a published answer, so you can check before you arrive.
Including the obvious one about a clinic publishing a page like this.
Partly, obviously. The test is whether the questions work against us too, and they do: four of the five have published answers on this site that you can check before booking anything.
What would make you refer me elsewhere. A clinic that can describe the boundary of its own competence has thought about something most clinics never mention at all, which tells you a great deal.
A firm total before an examination is a guess, because session count is the largest variable and comes from the anoscopy. A clear explanation of what drives the number is different.
Ask where it came from, how success was defined and over what period. A clinic that can answer those three is giving you something; one that cannot is quoting marketing.
Not if your grade suits it and the reasoning is specific. It is a problem when banding is offered for an external hemorrhoid or a fissure, where it is simply the wrong procedure.
No. Which procedure suits you follows from your own examination, and a clinic leading with its equipment rather than with your findings has the order backwards. Ask what it found first.
Choosing
Questions that work against us too
Specific beats impressive
An answer about your grade and your columns is worth more than one about how effective a procedure is.
Ask about referring out
The most informative question and the least asked. Our published answer is the red flags page.
A price before an exam
Session count is the largest variable and comes from the anoscopy, so a firm total beforehand is a guess.
Honest answers have edges
A figure not sourced, a procedure that would not suit you. Answers with no edges are usually marketing.
