Hello,

My name is Teri. I am wanting to have the Lapband done, I live in Lawrenceville, GA, anyone live near me? I am insured under my husbands BCBS of FL. I have not had any luck as to being able to get this covered under his policy, any suggestions? If I have to pay for this out of my pocket I have been told it could cost up to 20K, I don't have this kind of change hanging around. I was told that Capital 1 would finance this so I called them, it would cost about 455 to 755 a month depending on credit once again I can't afford this, anyone have any other suggestions?

The Dr. is S. Steinberg anyone heard anything about him?

20k sounds way too high.. I'm a self pay and I only paid 16K and my doc is more expensive than most. I looked at it this way.. new car.. or new body.. guess what I choose :clap2:

I paid $13000 in Utah and that includes fills, nutritionist, social worker, support groups, etc. for a year. Plus, if anything goes wrong and I need re-surgery, the dr. doesn't charge his fees again during that first year. I'm self-pay, too. We used part of our retirement but the way I see it is: if I didn't have the surgery I couldn't use the money anyway because I'd be dead and gone! Good luck!

That isn't more expensive than most within the US. It is for Mexico but not the US. In AZ it ranges from $16,500-$30,000. That does not include all the crap US docs require such as a psych eval, nutrionist eval, etc.

In Mexico they require pre-op labs, EKG, Chest xray, etc. but that is included in the total fee of $8200. The guy here that charges $16,500 does not include all the wasteful stuff in that fee. The wasteful stuff is extra. You know, the stuff to cover their butts, not because the patient actually needs it. LOL

I didn't have to get a psych or nutritionist eval, chest x-ray, etc. I did have pre-op labs and an EKG that were covered by my health insurance as part of a "check up" my PCP did for me. My total cost was $12,900 including all the fills, etc. for a year and then I can also pay $250 next year for all the fills I need. FYI. It pays to shop around. My dr. hasn't done as many surgeries as the Mexico dr.'s but he has done close to 500 and I was comfortable with that. Good luck!

i paid $12,900.00. i was self pay also. and it covered everything besides 1 year of fills and no pre-op testing. had my surgery march 13, 2007 with dr. spivak in houston, texas. and very happy i did already can see the results, more energy lost 13lbs in 2 weeks. good luck!

Thank you all for getting back to me so quickly.

Who did you get to finance your surgeries?

I don't really know how financing works. I don't know if certain docs use specific financing co's or what. So you might email my docs office and see who they use. Doesn't mean you have to go to my doc but at least they can refer you to a couple of companies and talk to them, see how it works.

http://www.mexicolapband.com/

They have a US (800), you can call them too.

My doc does financing but he says you can find better rates through banks and other lenders. I know some people have done second mortgages on their homes (gives you a tax benefit), which would be a decent rate most likely. We took ours out of our 401K. We didn't have a penalty because of our age but the dr. said that they could give us a letter which would do away with the penalty if we needed him to.

I got a great deal from capital one.. no interest if I paid it off in a year, and since I didn't borrow the full amount it should be ok.

I know a few people who had great experiences in Mexico. You can go to the yahoo forum and get recommendations and info on those doctors as an extra resource. You could try a credit union to see if they would give you a lower rate here for a loan.

This might sound terrible, but I got a loan from my bank first and then got one of those 2.99% on transfers for the life of the loan credit cards to switch it over to. CHEAP!

Mine cost 15k Dr. Spiegel in Houston ,Tx. Have a couple of frinds that went to Mexico for 8000.00 Good Luck!

Once again thank you all for all this info.