Hello everyone! I am a confused newbie who has found herself here! In pursuit of a gastric bypass, I have recently completed my insurance company's required 6 month supervised diet, meeting all of the criteria for an "easy approval". I have a well qualified surgeon at a bariatric Center of Excellence in the Chicagoland area, but much to my surprise, I was disapproved within two days of my paperwork being submitted due to an error in the process. The situation was rectified and my paperwork was resubmitted 5 days later. That has been over a week ago, and I'm becoming a frantic mess! In the meanwhile, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and there are some aspects of gastric bypass surgery that I am not entirely comfortable with. To make a long story short, I would much likely prefer a vsg, but was told that it was not covered by my insurance company. I would even be willing to self pay for this procedure, but my question is, should a complication arise, what chance would I have for insurance coverage??? :crying:

There's been some patients that had part of the hospital bills from complications covered by insurance, but others have had complete exclusion of any complication bills being paid by insurance that do not cover the initial procedure. It seems it's all in how the hospital bills the charges, and how the doctor handles the complications.

It's a tough situation to be in as I would not want bypass, and I would have self-paid for my revision if insurance would not have come through for me.

OMG that is a good question and before you make any further decision please stick around to get some feedback on this issue. Many people have self paid for their VSG surgery and are well informed. Best wishes. Ah Tiff! She is a lifeline here at VST.

I went to Dr. Aceves in Mexico and self paid. Dr. Aceves is a very good surgeon, and although some people don't believe it, he has never had any complications from sleeve surgery. I would not hesitate to recommend him, and over half the members on this board have gone to him and would say the same thing.

Oregon,

Wow you have lost 102lbs and are below target weight, how cool!!!! I knew you were close but just noticed.

Hang in there, I have to use COE too and had to wait 10 days so hopefully you'll hear something soon. Once you know you're approved then things will be more clear and you can decide. Oh yeah, and it would have been longer except I called the Doctor office, the insurance lady went to the web site and got approval. Best Wishes.Carla

If you don't mind me asking. What was the error in the process? What insurance company is this? I am in the 5th month of my 6 month diet attempt. So this post really caught my eye and gave me something to think about. I am really worried that something may go wrong in my process as well.