My insurance company requires a 3 month lag time for all of the hoop-jumping & such in order to approve the surgery.

What is the exact process, and how long should it take?

(I was already told by my surgical group, but I'm curious to hear from real life bandsters who have been thru it)

Thanks in advance

It depends vastly on your surgeon and insurance.

My insurance required 6 months of a supervised diet and exercise program. My surgeon required a EGD, counseling sessions, nutritionist visits and approval from my GP. My GP had his own host of requirements to make sure I was suitable for surgery, including of all random things, a normal pap smear.

All told, my time from initial consult to surgery was 11 months.

What did your insurance say was the reason?

Let me clarify - the 3 months is the time frame that I have to do the dr. monitored diet, etc...

I just want to know, after the 3 month time of "prerequisites" is done, about how long does it take to get all the testing, evals, etc done? My surgi-center is a one stop shop, so I can get everything i need done there, with the exception of the psych eval...

Hello, I haven't had the surgery yet but have been approved and my date is April 12th. I started the process in Nov 09 and did not have any kind of supervised diet, my insurance did not require that. So all together it has taken me 5months.. Boy that sounds like a long time but it really did go by fast!!!! Good luck!!!:sad: