I was wondering if anyone has been approved without doing a supervised weight loss program.

I have Cigna which I thought always required some type of supervised weight loss program but my patient coordinator says that my self-insured Cigna Plan through my school district doesn’t require one. They do require that I have been employed with the district for 5 years and that the surgery be performed at a Cigna Center of Excellence. When I called Cigna they told me just the opposite that I needed to do a three-month program and that there was nothing about 5 years of employment.

I also checked with my benefits department as they said the same thing as my patient coordinator.

I was denied a few weeks ago because the hospital that my surgeon used was no longer a Cigna Center of Excellence. I found a new surgeon and a new hospital and jump through their new hoops and my file has been resubmitted.

Now I am really nervous that I will be denied again, because of the lack of a weight loss program. If I had knowed if would take so long for this process I would have done the 3 month supervised weight loss program just to be on the safe side.

Nope, I just had to have proof of obesity for a certain number of years....(weigh ins at my docs office were my proof). I did not have to show any history of diet attempts, etc. I was very very lucky

I was approved without the supervised weight loss program. I was totally shocked, but I have Aetna Medicare Advantage.

I have Federal BCBS and I am required to do the 3 month diet plan which I am doing now. I met with the Nutritionist and now I am just keeping a diary of what I am eating and each time I go to the doctor I will see the nutritionist. She told me it isn't required that I actually lose a lot of weight on the pre diet but I must show documentation of attempting to lose for 3 months. I was quite miffed at first but the time actually goes by rather quickly. My Surgeon told me it takes 3 months to get all the pre-surgery work done anyway so it's not really a big deal. Just do the diet and maybe you won't need it but if you do... you are on your way. Good luck to you.

I wish that i had done that because i having been going through this process since August and it would have already been completed. Hopefully I will approved without it, I would hate to weight another 3 months because of misinformation.

I got my approval from Cigna today without completeing a supervised weight loss program.

Az, I 'm az too. I am retired/disabled school district. I have Mercy Care ssi/mao. I looked at their physician checklist and it is the typical 6 month wt nut exercise routine. I was planning tijuana but thought, "what the heck" and looked at mercy care. No way. So hello mexico.

Each Cigna plan had different requirements Mine required 6 months documented weight loss.

I honestly don't know. I have BCBS PPO in Illinois (and have had it for about 16 years) and while if they look back they will certainly see a number of medically supervised weight loss programs, I only had to self report. In any case, from the first appointment to approval was only about 2 months. I had to do two visits with a nutritionist and they had to be one month apart. So that was the only time constraint I really had. I was kind of blown away by how fast it all went, in the end, though that last one-two weeks of submission to approval seemed to drag along.

My insurance company said they required 6 months of a weight loss program (or 3 consective months of 2 different programs). I turned on my weight watchers card. I had 3 months in a row of weigh in stickers that I actually received from WW, then I wrote in my weights for the next 3 months on the card and added ''eTools'' beside it because I used the website a few times. Since I had my bank statement showing I had paid for WW each month for an entire year, my insurance company accepted it. I think what I did or perhaps using strictly eTools is the closest you can get to not having to do a weight loss program. call your insurance company to find out for sure