I have good insurance but there's a specific exclusion for weight-loss surgery. I've read about people having a hernia repair covered by insurance and paying the difference out-of-pocket to have weight-loss surgery done at the same time making the out-of-pocket costs significantly lower. *no it's not insurance fraud since there is a legitimate medical procedure that insurance is approving surgery for

My question is how do I go about finding a doctor that's willing to do that? How do I get a doctor to even test for a hernia in the first place? Just call and ask??

I'm in Colorado and have only seen mention of this practice in Texas.

Your PCP can order an upper GI series or endoscopy to test for a hiatal hernia. Hopefully you can honestly say you have symptoms (night attacks of reflux for example) and otc PPI's haven't helped. Then you can go to different bariatric surgeons and say you have a diagnosed hiatal hernia, would they do both surgeries together and you could self pay for the sleeve portion?

You can also go directly to the surgeon. Just explain that your insurance won't cover the sleeve but you *might* have a hernia. Someone at the doctor's office should be able to tell you whether they can help or not.

What type of hernia ?

I have a hiatal hernia which is what started the weight loss surgery path. I went to the surgeon for hernia surgery and he said with me being 95 lbs overweight the Nissan fundiplication wouldn't hold and the bypass would eliminate almost all the reflux issues. After a lot of research I have decided to do the bypass surgery and hernia repair. The insurance will cover the hernia as it a very valid medical problem attributing to the severe reflux which is causes esophagus scaring and such.

From what I have read here and other sources it's fairly common for overweight people to have this type of hernia. I knew mine was there for about 5 years due to multiple scopes for the reflux problem but it has increased in size.

A side note.... The part of the procedure covered by insurance is a small fraction compared to what you will still out of pocket from what I have been told. Hernia repair is outpatient so the hospital stay isn't covered which is the largest part of the bill. I still can't get a straight answer on the exact cost. I know that my doctor has an all inclusive program for $25,000 for bypass so I am hoping for at least a couple thousand off that.