Hello. First post here but I've been lurking for a while. I'm normally really shy (shy over a message board isn't that silly!?), but I decided that if I was going to be serious I needed to go ahead and sign up here. You guys are so helpful and supportive of others, makes me smile even reading other peoples' posts.

So I have a couple questions. I was doing a six month supervised dieting to get approved through my insurance (Cigna) when all the sudden I get a call last week that !! Cigna has lowered their requirement froim six months to three!! And I've already done three!! I'm with True Results in Houston and I can't tell you how appreciative I am that they called me instead of waiting until my next appointment to let me find out. I know they're in this to make money blah blah, but still it was awesome of them to take the time to do that for me.They had been really on me to get all of the other requirements done early and I'm SO glad I did! The EGD is done, the psych is done, sleep study is done, I have the letter from my primary physician. The only thing left is the letter saying I'm good to go for surgery and the blood work, which they're going to do there on Wednesday.

My questions are, how long do you guys think it will take for the insurance to give me an approval (fingers crossed) if the information is submitted Wednesday? I'd REALLY love to have the surgery third week in June but is that not enough time? Will they schedule a preliminary surgery date for me on Wednesday and we'll just hope I get approval by that date? I'm terrified that I won't get approved even though I meet all of the requirements, just from reading the horror stories on here... and I still feel like Cigna lowering their requirement feels just too good to be true. Anyway, my next question was how much recovery time those of you with sit down jobs needed? The only other major surgery I've ever had was a c-section and I bounced back from that in no time. My job is very easy, not physically taxing at all, I just sit down and type or answer phones all day. I'm hoping to get the surgery on a Monday and not come back to work until the next Tuesday .The thing is, I can't be out the first week of July due to my co-workers being on scheduled vacation already. I know I should probably just wait until the second week in July to be SURE I can have enough time off... but I'm just SO anxious to get this thing started. I'm losing sleep at night and everything it's so pathetic! I'm 26 and in reasonable shape other than the jiggly bits, a week or two off should be enough time for an easy sit down job right? Thanks for any advice!

New to forum! Going to my first seminar June 4th! I live in illinois and have Illinois Medicaid. My husbands insurance won't kick in for another year!! My BMI is at 43. I found a place in Herrin Illinois that accepts Medicaid so I'm hoping what they told me is true and there isn't a 2 year waiting list!! They said it takes about a month to get in to see the dr. and around 8 weeks to schedule surgery. Does anyone else have any experience or guidance for me???

Erin: I have been doing the supervised dieting for three months and I do have a two week pre-op diet. I'm sticking to that now just in case they can get me in there earlier' date=' I don't want to give them any hesitations. My diet's pretty easy fortunately, just 1200 calories a day, low carb, low fat, plenty of protien. I only have to do a liquid diet for the first day pre-op, I can handle that. 14 days would be just fine, I hope they approve me that quick! We found out I have a hiatal hernia too so I have more than a few reasons for wanting this to happen quick... the heartburn is killing me! Ugh![/quote']

Good, if you get the approval fast you won't have to put it off until you do your diet. Good luck to you!

Thanks guys. I know that realistically the chances aren't great that I'll be able to have a surgery date in June, but I am glad to know now that it's at least a possibiity. As far as the scheduling goes with my surgeon, even though they have a ton of patients, for some reason right now they do have a lot of open time slots ot book the surgeries. They've told me before that the scheduling should only take a week at the most and when they did my EGD (same surgeon) it took two days. Like I said, I know it's kind of a long shot but I'm going to stay hopeful. Even if we can't make it happen, ealy July isn't so far away. I just hope they don't deny me...

My surgeon's practice said that the there was going to be a two week delay between when I got approval and when I could get surgery. When the time came, they had over a month delay and I was only able to get the surgery at one month post-approval because they let me schedule on a day my surgeon does not do bands.

Wow I had Cigna too. You are lucky because I had to wait the six months supervised diet. I will have to let my sister know this as she is waiting too.

I had surgery on a Tuesday morning. Got out Tuesday night at 10:30. Took me the rest of the week to rest. Bit the following three days into the next week I only worked half days I was so tired no energy. Everyone is different. Take time to heal focus on healing not losing for the next few weeks.