jjack929

Hi everyone,

I live in the Washington DC area and was all set to get a gastric sleeve earlier this week. I'd been working towards this for a year, only to find out at the last minute (I had already started my pre-op diet) that my insurance won't approve the sleeve, but will approve the bypass.

I originally didn't want a bypass -- i thought it was too scary/too extensive. Now that I know it's my only choice, i'm coming around to the idea and just found this forum. If I give my doc the go ahead, I can probably get on the surgery schedule for April.

Any encouraging thoughts would be much appreciated. Are there any DC ladies here?

I have US Family Health Plan which I guess fals under Tricare Prime. I have to be seen at Johns Hopkins facilities. I was scheduled for a sleeve today at Sibley Hospital in DC, have been at this for almost a year, and learned last week that Tricare will not cover the sleeve because it's too new, but they will cover the bypass. I really, really don't want a bypass.

I talked to someone at the bariatric clinic today at WalterReed (MTF) and to be considered for their program you have to be enrolled in Tricare prime and use the base clinic and get a referral from your PC. I talked to the tricare office and you can't use tricare standard to go to the MTF. I don't understand why, but that's what they told me. I will be changing over to Prime sometime in February and start working on my referral.