Hi,I was wondering if anyone heard about the FDA possibly lowering their BMI requirements from 35 with comorbidities to 30 with cormobidities? On the FDA website under the news and events,if you go under meetings to the advisory meeting calendar (tried to put a link in before wouldn't work) and slated for December 2-3,2010 is the gastroenterology devices panel meeting that states that they will be discussing the issue of lowering the bmi range. This may be good news for some of us that fall between 30 and 35 bmi because hopefully they'll lower the requirements and the insurance companies will follow. I don't know how long it takes to make changes happen if they do decide to do that.

I believe this is the article you were trying to link to.

Thanks! I couldn't get the link to work.

I think it would take years for an FDA decision to translate into an expensive change for the insurance companies. Yes, they save money because you dont end up with more or worse co morbidities but that is called prevention and they have generally never supported that.

Scrape up your pennies, get a loan, whatever...I self-paid and it was the best thing i ever did...wish I had known about it or that it was available much sooner!

My doctor mentioned this last week saying that it looks good that the FDA will be changing the BMI requirements from 35 to 30. This will help lots of people.

But what the FDA does will take a while to translate into insurance coverage!

Hi,I was wondering if anyone heard about the FDA possibly lowering their BMI requirements from 35 with comorbidities to 30 with cormobidities? On the FDA website under the news and events,if you go under meetings to the advisory meeting calendar (tried to put a link in before wouldn't work) and slated for December 2-3,2010 is the gastroenterology devices panel meeting that states that they will be discussing the issue of lowering the bmi range. This may be good news for some of us that fall between 30 and 35 bmi because hopefully they'll lower the requirements and the insurance companies will follow. I don't know how long it takes to make changes happen if they do decide to do that.

This is was from the FDA website. But again how long will it take for the insuarnce companies to make the change??

The Feb. 16, 2011, approval expands the use of the LAP-BAND to include obese individuals with a BMI of 30 to 34 who also have an existing condition related to their obesity.