Hi everyone I am new to this forum but have been going through all the preop stuff and jumping through hoop after hoop with tricare. I was told that I had to do 6 months of seeing a nutritionist. the office i've been going through told me that they submitted everything to the tricare office and that it would take a few weeks before i knew what was going on. yah and that was 6 weeks ago. I've one through everything and tricare has approved everything but the surgery. I haven't heard anything and the office that I have been going to is one from the `800get-thin numbers and has really random hours. so I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if you have tricare paying or paid for the surgery how long did you have to wait? thanks a bunch.

Hi everyone I am new to this forum but have been going through all the preop stuff and jumping through hoop after hoop with tricare. I was told that I had to do 6 months of seeing a nutritionist. the office i've been going through told me that they submitted everything to the tricare office and that it would take a few weeks before i knew what was going on. yah and that was 6 weeks ago. I've one through everything and tricare has approved everything but the surgery. I haven't heard anything and the office that I have been going to is one from the `800get-thin numbers and has really random hours. so I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if you have tricare paying or paid for the surgery how long did you have to wait? thanks a bunch.

You don't say what kind of Tricare insurance you have, but I think you need to give them a call and find out what's up. To my knowledge, Tricare does NOT require a 6 month nutritionist visit. I have Tricare Prime, and I know from experience that they are extremely fast to approve people once things are submitted requesting surgery. In my case it was three working days.

So yeah, call them and find out the whole story. Something is out of kilter with your situation.

Good luck!

Dave

I also have tricare prime. I was told when i started that tricare requires a 6 month supervised diet or you have been on one within the past 2 years. like weight watchers or jenny craig or seen a nutritionist. Yeah i think i will call and see what the deal is. I've never had to wait more then a week for tricare to approve or deny anything so this is weird.

You don't say what kind of Tricare insurance you have, but I think you need to give them a call and find out what's up. To my knowledge, Tricare does NOT require a 6 month nutritionist visit. I have Tricare Prime, and I know from experience that they are extremely fast to approve people once things are submitted requesting surgery. In my case it was three working days.

So yeah, call them and find out the whole story. Something is out of kilter with your situation.

Good luck!

Dave

I also have tricare prime. I was told when i started that tricare requires a 6 month supervised diet or you have been on one within the past 2 years. like weight watchers or jenny craig or seen a nutritionist. Yeah i think i will call and see what the deal is. I've never had to wait more then a week for tricare to approve or deny anything so this is weird.

Definitely call them. To my knowledge, for Tricare Prime a six month supervised diet is definitely not required. The closest they (my surgeon's team) got to that for me was asking how much I weighed at various ages in my life, and asking what I did about it. I explained to them that I've been progressively overweight at those ages, and rattled off the various diets I've been on. Then we talked about why the diets didn't work. That was all they wanted. From the date of that consult to surgery approval from Tricare was just 22 days. I had to do some lab work and an endoscopy in between, and as I mentioned above, the actual surgery request only took three work days to get approval.

Dave

I have Tricare Standard and totally agree with everything Dave said.

Mimi

Tricare Prime does not require you to do a 6 month program with dr. hope that helps

Hi everyone I am new to this forum but have been going through all the preop stuff and jumping through hoop after hoop with tricare. I was told that I had to do 6 months of seeing a nutritionist. the office i've been going through told me that they submitted everything to the tricare office and that it would take a few weeks before i knew what was going on. yah and that was 6 weeks ago. I've one through everything and tricare has approved everything but the surgery. I haven't heard anything and the office that I have been going to is one from the `800get-thin numbers and has really random hours. so I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if you have tricare paying or paid for the surgery how long did you have to wait? thanks a bunch.

I have Tricare, my husband is active duty.... The surgeon told me all you to do is have the BMI requirements, and pass a psych evaluation... I have both of these and will hopefully find out next week if I am approved. Also the psychologist I saw today told me that Dr. offices get monthly news letters from Tricare and on one of the monthly issues it was saying Tricare encourages the surgery, that is why there is few requirements, this is my understanding. I hope everything works out for you okay, and good luck oh yeah for sure give them a call...

Hi everyone I am new to this forum but have been going through all the preop stuff and jumping through hoop after hoop with tricare. I was told that I had to do 6 months of seeing a nutritionist. the office i've been going through told me that they submitted everything to the tricare office and that it would take a few weeks before i knew what was going on. yah and that was 6 weeks ago. I've one through everything and tricare has approved everything but the surgery. I haven't heard anything and the office that I have been going to is one from the `800get-thin numbers and has really random hours. so I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if you have tricare paying or paid for the surgery how long did you have to wait? thanks a bunch.

Tricare is usually VERY easy; it sounds like the hoops your are jumping through are the clinic's, not Tricare's. They do NOT require a 6 month diet of any kind, though some doctors still insist on one for their own requirements. There are only two authorizations anyone should need from Tricare for the band--one is the authorization/referral to see the band specialist from their PCM, and that is only for those with Tricare Prime (as all others do not have PCMs or require referrals) and the other is authorization for surgery. Tricare is typically very fast in making decisions, so I would also question why it is taking so long. I would definitely call Tricare to see if the office has even submitted anything to them.