Unfortunately, I cannot find a secondary insurance that will cover surgery and my primary insurance lists it as an exclusion, so I have no choice but pay out-of-pocket. The best physicians closest to me (Bowling Green and Toledo, Ohio) want $25k and $22k respectively. I am willing to travel outside of my immediate area even to surrounding states if necessary. For those of you that took the self-pay route, how much was and where did you have surgery? What was your experience like? Thank you all in advance for your input.

D.R. Potential Sleever

15k in Atlanta. Check my bio for surgeon details.

10k in Philadelphia. 7,000 for hospital fees. 1800 for surgeon feee plus miscellaneous fees for anesthesia etc.

I second Dr. Mark Pleatman in Bloomfield, Michigan. It was $11,200. I had mine done by him on Dec 29 and I have healed so far ahead of schedule!. He does a lot of procedures per year and the hospital is great. I personally would prefer to be in a US hospital just in case something goes wrong. But yes you can save money by going to Mexico if you need to.

$10,000 on the dot. Got it done in Kuwait though.

15k USD in California

Sent from my SM-N950U using BariatricPal mobile app

Dr Dietrick in Tampa. Paid $14,500 for the sleeve. He has a payment plan for his portion of the fee (about $5k) but I paid all at once. Stayed in the hospital one night. I was able to get my insurance to cover the pre-op bloodwork and the EKG though by visiting my primary care doc and having her order them. She made sure not to say they were for pre-op (we were worried insurance would deny it then). Surgeon was excellent. My surgery got cancelled because of the hurricane but he cancelled his vacation the following week so he could take care of the patients like me who had missed their dates.

I am 5 months out and had to get my post op bloodwork two months ago. Tried to fool insurance again but since the tests were all for vitamin deficiencies it was pretty obvious it was for post bariatric surgery testing. It was all denied. Ended up costing me $1200. That was a cost the doctor did not prepare me for. Luckily I don't have to get tested again since my levels were all ok.

1 hour ago, Booandfrida said:

I am 5 months out and had to get my post op bloodwork two months ago. Tried to fool insurance again but since the tests were all for Vitamin deficiencies it was pretty obvious it was for post bariatric surgery testing. It was all denied. Ended up costing me $1200. That was a cost the doctor did not prepare me for. Luckily I don't have to get tested again since my levels were all ok.

I use this lab online called Healthcheck USA where you don't need a doctor's order to get labwork done. You order, pay online, then they send you an order to go have your blood drawn at a local lab. I use Quest Labs here to do the draws. I self pay for my cancer levels cuz my onc doesn't believe in them. I save a WAD of money.

http://www.healthcheckusa.com/nutrition-vitamin-tests/panels.aspx

I paid $4,100 for my gastric sleeve surgery in MX.

BariatricPal has their own hospital in Tijuana. I paid 4600 and it was a great experience! I just got sleeved on the 2nd and the care was better than the United States.