Michelle Keller

Hello all. I can’t believe I actually get to post in one of these threads now. I’ve been on these forums for years but haven’t had insurance that covered it. That’s finally changed! My surgery is scheduled for November 22. I have my pre op appointment on November 11th. I hope you’re all doing well and kicking butt on your pre op diets!

My husband just took a new job with better insurance that finally covers bariatric surgery. We decided on the best plan because I knew I wanted to get the surgery. Now I’m seeing that there is a 6 month medically supervised diet required before surgery and keep reading that a surgeon won’t even speak to you until that’s done, which means I couldn’t get the surgery this year. I need to get the surgery done this year as we can’t afford to pay for the best insurance plan again next year snd without the best insurance plan, the out of pocket maximum is much much higher. My pcp had me on Phenteramine last year, for about 8 months. Any chance this would count as a medically supervised diet? Im probably grasping at straws here, but I’m so upset that I didn’t realize this earlier.

Can anyone help me figure out what this means? They said that bariatrics are included with our new insurance but this makes no sense to me. I’ve called insurance and all they did was read it to me and can’t explain it any further. I have calls into places to meet with surgeons but don’t want to get my hopes up if this isn’t going to happen. Thanks in advance.

I can’t find anywhere that lists what is covered and when I called the insurance they couldn’t tell me either, they just kept rereading the passage above.

The old policy didn’t include bariatrics at all.

Hello! My husbands insurance finally added bariatric surgery onto the insurance plan. His work is based in MA so though we are in NC, we have BCBS OF MA. Does anyone know how long of a period I have to go on a weight loss program before I can get approved for gastric bypass? 3 months? 6? The insurance doesn’t start until Jan. 1st or I’d call them and get all the info I could. Thanks in advance!

I have insurance through my husband's work. They do not cover any kind of bariatric surgery. I am thinking about getting a secondary insurance through Obamacare when it is open enrollment. My question is, do I have to wait a certain amount of time after getting the insurance to have the surgery? For example if I had all of my past diet info and psychology report and everything else the insurance requires before surgery, is there a wait time after purchasing the insurance before you can use it for major surgeries such as bariatric surgery? Thanks!

Thankfully I'm in NC and they do co we it here. I'm from Ohio though and saw that it's not covered. That sucks for so many people who could use this surgery to save their lives.

No, I called the Marektplace and confirmed that I can purchase through them, even with my husbands plan, I just have to pay full price for the policy and don't get a subsidy which I had already assumed. It was United Healthcare that couldn't figure out the requirements for the Bariatric surgery with the plan I was looking at.

The plan I'm looking at has a 1600.00 deductible and 3600 out of pocket maximum. I called the insurance company but everyone was so confused and just kept transferring me to Simone else!