Everyday I feel like I find another new wrinkle in researching this. Today's surprise is program fees. Does everyone have to pay these??? I'm trying to deal with this through insurance. My DH is not a huge fan of WLS to start with, so paying out of pocket is not an option. I have been researching surgeons between this site, obesityhelp, and my insurance list. I found a surgeon that comes highly recommended, is in my state, and takes my insurance, but after further perusing of his website I find they have a one time, non refundable, non insurance covered program fee of $2000! This is for their outsourced education program and nutritional consultations.

Is this normal????

I also came across a surgeon who charged a $2000 program fee. They claim it covers paperwork and nutrional counseling. It seems outrageously excessive to me.

After some more searching, I found another surgeon who had no program fee. Or so I thought - imagine my surprise when I was told I'd have to pay a $150.00 program fee at my first visit!

Nutrional counseling cost another $200.00 (also not reimbursable by insurance). Still much more reasonable than $2,000 though!

does Dr sanchez have this program fee or is it included in his fee?

NO! He does not charge a program fee of any kind. And they give you a breakdown of what your money paid for through the whole process. The band, surgical staff, hospital fees and room for the night, medication, etc. It is quite a simple breakdown, and seeing as how the band itself casts around 3k, the leftover 5500 really gets spread around pretty thin. There is no "fee" to pad his pockets in any way.

Mine was 500 also. I was mad at first, but in this area it was the norm. All the docs here charged one, most were 350-500. So I stuck with my doc, he was the best and I wanted the best. I have a date of july 25th so I don't know if I will get my 500 worth of support but its there if I need it... 2000.00 seems a little extreme to me... Unless that covers a life time of fills, support ect... I think I might have to shop around.... heck even if you have to travel a little your not going to pay that much for your gas, hotel, ect..... good luck!!!!

The first doctor I had picked was great and highly qualified and I was very excited to be going to her until the day before my consult someone on here warned me there was a $800 support group fee due before surgery along with the $250 consult fee and $175 psych eval fee and the fee's for two visits to the dietician, etc. I about flipped out! So I then canceled my appt and started going to other seminars. I'm very happy I did. The only out of pocket I've had has been the $50 consult fee and $100 hospital fee. YAY for money!

Well, my bariatric center's "member ship fee" is tiered, and of course non refundable. It covers "providing support for the comprehensive services of the program (assisting in organizing necessary documents to complete assessment phase of program") whatever that means. You can pay $250 w/in 2 weeks of the first assessment, $300 @ surgeon consult, and $350 upon ins. approval. If you're self pay, you STILL have to pay the fee, go figure! Just like anything else, they know if you want it bad enough, you'll find the money. I also had to pay $250 for the psych eval upfront (even w/a participating provider). Someone at work had to do the same thing with that psychologist and it took an act of congress to get their $240 back from the same Dr AFTER battling w/ins co. Great.

:faint: