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Anyone who has BCBS have to pay an extra *3000* or any different amount to have * gastric * surgery? That is an additional to what your deductible, co insurance is. I mean surgery is surgery regardless of what kind they all are done do due to some sort of health related issue? Why I ask is I'm thinking of getting in contact with HR seeing if they will still have that when it comes time to renew OR see if they can drop this part. Sounds silly I know but I have seen other BCBS that don't have this *extra*

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Hi Teriiann --

I have Anthem BCBS and do not have that line in my company's policy. However, each plan is different. It isn't a BCBS requriement - it is a corporate requirement. HR is a good place to start.

The other thing you can do is put the $3,000 is your flexible spending account during benefits enrollment. That way it's not as painfully out of pocket.

Good luck!

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Thank you. I'm pretty blind to all this insurance stuff. Flexible spending account? I don't have the 3000 to do that. But I do think I'm going to write our company and see it won't hurt that's for sure!

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Anyone who has BCBS have to pay an extra *3000* or any different amount to have * gastric * surgery? That is an additional to what your deductible, co insurance is. I mean surgery is surgery regardless of what kind they all are done do due to some sort of health related issue? Why I ask is I'm thinking of getting in contact with HR seeing if they will still have that when it comes time to renew OR see if they can drop this part. Sounds silly I know but I have seen other BCBS that don't have this *extra*

I have BCBS of Texas and I am in the same boat as you. From what I have learned from BCBS is that this $3000.00 is a maximum co-pay for a specialists services...Now, the girl at my doctor's office said that the $3000.00 dollars was the cap on what they could charge for their services pertaining to the doctor performing the surgery itself (this does not include your regular policy co-pay for the hospital and anesthesia services) but she said they would probably only charge about half of that... 1400.00 or 1500.00 tops...Of course, I'm sure this varies from doctor to doctor. Once you have contacted BCBS to get an estimation of your benefits, you might want to talk to someone in the doctor's office and have them give you some kind of estimate...I was also given the phone number to the hospital where my surgery will be done once I get approved, and they were able to give me an estimate on how much the hospital and anesthesia services would be. Granted, these are all "estimations" but at least that gives you some idea of what you are working with. Hope this helps you out! if you have any questions hit me up...I may not have all the answers, but at least we can support each other!!

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I have BCBS of Texas and I am in the same boat as you. From what I have learned from BCBS is that this $3000.00 is a maximum co-pay for a specialists services...Now, the girl at my doctor's office said that the $3000.00 dollars was the cap on what they could charge for their services pertaining to the doctor performing the surgery itself (this does not include your regular policy co-pay for the hospital and anesthesia services) but she said they would probably only charge about half of that... 1400.00 or 1500.00 tops...Of course, I'm sure this varies from doctor to doctor. Once you have contacted BCBS to get an estimation of your benefits, you might want to talk to someone in the doctor's office and have them give you some kind of estimate...I was also given the phone number to the hospital where my surgery will be done once I get approved, and they were able to give me an estimate on how much the hospital and anesthesia services would be. Granted, these are all "estimations" but at least that gives you some idea of what you are working with. Hope this helps you out! if you have any questions hit me up...I may not have all the answers, but at least we can support each other!!

oh, as someone previously posted, this $ 3,000.00 copay is required by the company that is providing my insurance....I would love to hear what you find out from your HR department!! I may have to contact mine and see what kind of (if any) headway can be made!

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What I heard from our HR was that they will not know about the *extra* until it rolls over the first day of the new insurance plans for the year. The woman I spoke with at our companies HR was for me to contact BCBS. Go figure! I told her they told me to call her. So I guess I'm just going to have to wait and see and see how I can manage to come up with that money! :(

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That response is not surprising! Well, I hope it all works out!! I will say a prayer..Lord knows I'm saying enough for myself on the same subject!

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I'll be saying them for you as well!! Hope it works in your favor too..........Back in April our insurance company didn't cover the sleeve. I refused to go through with the gastric bypass. I stopped going to see the Nut, I had only seen her one time. Since then I have prayed that someday they approve the sleeve and they did as of Aug 1st, so the power of prayer does work. Keep praying!!!

Good luck........:)

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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