I got a call today from my doctor's office and UHC has approved my surgery!!!!! YaY!!! It took them a whole 9 days to approve it. Wow!!! I went in for my doc's appointment 16 days ago but it took them a week to send it to the insurance for approval. I'm so excited but am scared to death at the same time. When I got off of the phone, I wanted to jump up and down!!! Ten minutes later, I wanted to cry! Ha! The emotions have already started flowing. Now, I'm waiting for a call to schedule the surgery.

Congrats!. UHC is a patient bt patient thing but I think they relaxed their requirement this year. Last year, my wife and I started out togther to get the procedure, I sailed right through because of my co-morbidities. She on the other hand was denied 3 times even though she had a higher BMI. The Dr resubmitted in January, nothing had changed and they approved her. Insurance companies can be a real pain to deal with. In the end, she is 9 months behind me, it really would have been nice to go through this together. There was a lot of guilt on my part for having it done without her and I can't speak for her but she was really disappointed because she wasn't doing it with me and was still stuck in a morbidly obese body. I suppose that in the end it really doesn't matter.Good luck on your upcoming surgery.

Congratulations!!!!

I got a call today from my doctor's office and UHC has approved my surgery!!!!! YaY!!! It took them a whole 9 days to approve it. Wow!!! I went in for my doc's appointment 16 days ago but it took them a week to send it to the insurance for approval. I'm so excited but am scared to death at the same time. When I got off of the phone, I wanted to jump up and down!!! Ten minutes later, I wanted to cry! Ha! The emotions have already started flowing. Now, I'm waiting for a call to schedule the surgery.

Woohoo!!! I'm so happy for you, I had UHC and they were great!

Thank you all!!! Yes, UHC is awesome!!! One of the ladies at the doc's office told me before I went through the approval process that UHC was the easiest insurance company to deal with. I sure do believe it!

Congratulations!

Hi chunkymonky91! Okay, I was very confused as to what UHC would cover and would require for this surgery. I had actually gone to a doc a little over a year ago to see about getting the lap band. They told me that they thought UHC would make me do a 6 month supervised diet but then about 10 days out I got a call from them saying that lap band was approved and that I had to do nothing else as far as the insurance was concerned. I didn't have it done because my husband was completely against it.

Now that my husband is on board and I discovered the sleeve. the process has gone so smoothly. I did call UHC before finding my doctor but they could not tell me anything ... Just that everything they consider is based on that individual and their coverage. They do not have a set standard for everyone across the board. This was really nerve racking because of course, I wanted an answer right then.

So, here's a timeline of what happened. My husband and I attended the seminar on 5-4-11. I had my first appointment with my doc on 5-11. Now, I had to sign something giving my permission for my other doctors to send records over. I thought that they were having to gather all this past medical history and everything to send to the insurance company. So I waited until 5-24 to call my doc's office to find out if they'd heard anything because the ins co has 30 days to make a decision. I was told that they sent my case to UHC on 5-18 and that usually if UHC had any request they would have heard back from them within 48 hours. I asked if they had any trouble with getting my medical records and was told that they never requested them...that they would only request them if UHC asked for them. Wow, i was really surprised by that. The doc's office seemed to think that this was a good sign. Then on 5-27, doc's office called and said I was approved and UHC required nothing from me. I couldn't believe it.

Now I have my preop class next Wednesday. But I started my preop diet 3 days ago. My surgery is on 6/23.

I don't know how they decide but if it matters, I am 5'5" and was 280 when I was weighed at the doc's office. My BMI was 46.6. Also, I'm not taking any meds for health problems although I have slightly high cholesterol and blood pressure...I was always told to watch what I eat to control both. Then in the last couple of months my blood sugar levels have been a little high and I'm actually waiting for results from in-depth blood work done last week to see if I'm diabetic. Also, had my back out last year and was almost completely bed ridden for a month. All of this the doctor said he would put in my case because the insuance co wanted a good reason or two to have this surgery done besides the fact that I wanted to lose weight. I really don't know what was the big decider for UHC.

I hope this helps.

Wow, it's kinda crazy how parallel our experience are. Last year I looked at the lapband but my family was against it and I had a weird nurse that said that i would have no chance of being approved if i didn't have a BMI of over 40 for 5 years. I changed my mind and wanted the sleeve. hopefully my experience will be just like yours and i can have the surgery in july/august.

thanks for all of the info!