Matt P

Just NOW read your reply Rick; thanks. The problem is that my wife has 20 years of experience with failed diets, but we saw no reason to notate /document these failures. The doctors also have no official mention of these circumstances in their notes, only vague and generic comments like, “patient advised to undertake nutrition plan,” “patient unsuccessful in losing weight.” So there’s nothing that LOOKS like a perfectly linear and “organized recounting” of her failed attempts. ugh, it’s gonna crush her to see a doc for six months straight and fail on another diet. Just makes me sick. Then she may just get so depressed and say that she can’t deal with it, and dump the surgery plan altogether.

Thank you very much for the reply! It is worth asking the insurance company for specifics. But sadly, anyone who has dealt with government bureaucracies knows, often times the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. I get my medical care at the VA, and the amount of incompetence/ignorance is staggering. After getting an MRI done, I was told I had to give it to one department, then let THAT department give it to a specialist, then that specialist would review it, then THEY would contact my primary care provider who would direct me to someone ELSE to see a physical therapist.... I took my MRI results paperwork/CD to the Release of Information department where they told me this convoluted process. I asked, “Can’t I just hand this stuff to the receptionist at X department?”. He replied, “No. this is a PROCESS; besides, they won’t just accept your paperwork anyway.” I asked the turn around time. He said “Two weeks.” Guess what I did? Took my paperwork up to the 2nd floor, handed it to the secretary, and got a call back the NEXT DAY to complete the process of my care. THIS is what government healthcare and ChampVA is like— complete ignorance and blind adherence to an outdated and inefficient process. The reason I asked for any personal experiences people have had with ChampVA, is to perhaps duplicate their SUCCESSFULL attempts at the documentation process. I do truly appreciate the replies though!

Hi everyone, I’m helping my wife begin the process of preparing for gastric sleeve surgery. We have ChampVA, and the people in the government bureaucracy (some of which are truly good people,) are incredibly ignorant. No one can tell me what “documentation” I need to prove medically supervised weight loss. Has ANYONE here succeeded in having ChampVA approve their bariatric surgery, and if so, how EXACTLY did you document your proof of medically supervised weight loss? I don’t have any papers from my wife’s docs that state anything SPECIFIC about her failed diets, only that the docs recommended weight loss attempts, and her weight just went up and down due to health problems. I don’t want my wife to be denied for surgery because it’s her only viable chance for weight loss! Her BMI is 40, she has high blood pressure, has one knee surgery, can’t exercise, has PCOS, chronic pain and fatigue, takes meds for depression and anxiety (for YEARS,) and has tried various diets with no success for 20 years. I love her to death, but I know if she has to jump through hoops for 6 months “medically supervised” to fail at another diet, it’s just gonna crush her emotionally. So if anyone here HAS succeeded in getting ChampVA to approve their surgery, I’m begging you to PLEASE reply or message me! Thank you, and God bless.

To that_prime_mom: What happened with your claim? Did ChampVA approve surgery? My Wife has ChampVA and has been trying to lose weight for 20 years, but has never succeeded- knee surgery, chronic pain... tried weight watchers twice, keto/atkins, many types of diets, but always failed. She has many chronic health issues. But she has never reported to a doc each month with any kind of “supervised plan”. It was more like the doc/docs constantly told her to try to lose weight and made suggestions for what she could do, but something always derailed her attempts— she had her gallbladder removed for gallstones, couldn’t exercise because of bad knees, has to take anxiety/depression meds which CAUSE weight gain, etc. I know my wife can’t succeed on willpower alone; bariatric surgery is her ONLY chance. So, did you convince ChampVA without a huge paper-trail of doc visits? Was it enough to just “write a letter”? I’m praying my wife doesn’t have to spend 6 months trying to diet again, only to fail, and be crushed once more, all while being “medically supervised” by her doc.