So the doctors office just called me and scheduled my first appointment with them now that my insurance covers it but it’s not for another month [emoji17] They also informed me that per my insurance which is United Healthcare, it is a requirement that I meet 5 times with their nutritionist over a period of six months. That’s six months I have to wait for a date for the surgery which is very depressing to me. I have a wedding in October and I wanted to make some progress by then so right now I am feeling a little defeated. Anybody else go through this and what was the outcome?

This is really common actually. My insurance doesn't require it, but the surgeon I am going to requires three months of dietitian visits. That want to ensure you are committed to lifestyle changes and starting early.

While my insurance did not have a 6 month requirement, my team had a three month requirement - but by the time I got all the testing scheduled and done, it was almost 5 months before I had my surgery. My program required the information session (April 2016). Then I started with the surgeon's office in May and my surgery was at the end of August. What I can tell you is they are looking for your ability to stick with the plan you will be given. I was given a high protein almost no carb plan to follow from the start - not very different than how I would be eating post-surgery. And I had to schedule the endoscopy, the pulmonary clearance, the cardiac clearance, the psych eval (which took more than a month to schedule and then another month to get the report back.)

The time flies. I understand your frustration, but the biggest part of making this work long-term is getting your head in the right place.

I have UHC as well and I did have the 6 month supervised diet but I meet with my surgeon each month and used that as the supervised diet. Meet with the nutritionist once and the psyh once. It goes by pretty quick. I was scheduled for surgery on the 4 visit so I knew my date. That is when it felt like it took forever. It gave me plenty of time to do all my research which made my visits a in and out thing cause I knew what was coming and what I needed to change. Used the 6 months to stop smoking and get it in my head I would not be able to eat a lot of the foods I loved then. So food funerals were an everyday thing the last month.