Ok, so my surgeon requires a non-refundable program fee of $600 before they will schedule you for the dietician, psych eval, or try to get insurance approval.

I've been reading these boards for awhile now and for the most part everyone seems to be happy with their choice.

My concern is if I change my mind or should I say chicken out:kiss before an actual surgery date, not only will I still be a chubmeister I'll have only lost weight in my wallet.

How confident were you going into your procedure? Second thoughts? Would anyone not have had the surgery knowing then what they know now?

Be honest I can take it:biggrin1:

hi Megan,

welcome to LBT.

i knew i wanted the surgery ... i was REALLY (really!!) big and dieting just didnt work for me.

the night before my surgery, i pretty much changed my mind. i was about to tell my DH ... we then took pictures.

that snapped me back into reality faster than anything.

banding is not a decision to take lightly. really think about it. why do you want to do it? why do you want to lose weight? my advice - write those reasons down as well - it will help you after you have been banded and lost some of your motivation...

best of luck to you in your decision. banding completely changed my life (for the better).

I wish you luck as well, but I would not be paying a non-refundable fee before I even got insurance info/approval.

I wish you luck as well, but I would not be paying a non-refundable fee before I even got insurance info/approval.

yeah, i forgot to add that part !

I would find a different doctor, unless you plan on paying for the surgery even if insurance denies you. The program fees that I have heard that people are charged that seem to 'go around' insurance is very fish to me.

Listen to them, they know what they are talking about. I was self-pay in Mexico, so I didn't have to deal with any of that.

The surgeon I went too did require a program fee of $500 to cover all my visits with the nutritionist and the education materials they give you and other stuff BUT the fee was refunded if I didn't get insurance approval. I'd be a little iffy about using a surgeon who would basically make money doing NOTHING! As far as regreting the band...well my only regret is not getting it sooner!

i was a self pay, too and my doctor collects a $400 non refundable fee for filing the insurance. i of course did the research on my own and found out that my policy has a written exclusion to any medical treatment for obesity. so, i asked them to waive the fee and they did.

I knew I had to do something with a BMI of 38 I was heading for major medical issues. I knew that I would have to do something as I begin to approach my 50'sd in the next five years. I had vowed it would not be this much of me on my 40th birthday and I could not keep the promise. Anyway I too was getting ready to chicken out...I won't lie right up to the point when they wheeled me into the operating room I was going to jump off the table and go to the closest Weight Watcher's meeting. But the reality is.... yes, I had lost there in the past but it all came back with more. Honestly $600.00 is not worth your life and a healthy future. I was just banded and the worst part has been the liquid diet after surgery. I do have some abdominal gas...NO shoulder pain. But for the results I am expecting I do believe it is well worth all that I went through so far. Everyone told me that the seconds thoughts was normal...people even say the after thoughts will kick your behind. My thinking is very worst case scenerio what goes in can come out. I am not planning to have Blanche (that is what I named my band) taken out, but the option is mine. No one can make the decision for you, but plan for the worst pain and pray for the best ( I did) but it was NOT bad at all. I am happy that the whole "will I die" feeling has past, now I can go on to the next stage. I am up already two days out from surgery I was on NO pain medication, went for a manicure and a pedicure a little shopping for juice and picked up the dog from the kennell. I even just came back from walking her...am I sore you betcha but nothing this old gal can't handle. Good Luck.

I agree with both sides of the coin, $600 is a small price to pay for a new lease on life, my concern is that they say it's non-refundable even if insurance denies coverage and I can't have the surgery. They also won't even attempt insurance approval until after the appointments and the fee is paid. The other thing that made me kind of nervous about the whole thing is that in the patient welcome letter it basically says "don't call us we'll call you", your "allowed" to call them once to see how the process is going and that's it. I understand that they don't want to be inundated with calls from anxious patients but if I have questions I want to be able to pick up the phone. This is a prominent surgeon at a prominent university hospital. Not the best first impression.

I think I'm going to look elsewhere.

On a side note Donna, I hope you and Blanche have a long healthy and happy life together. Congratulations:)

ok, the fee i can completely understand. the insurance process is a monster. and a lot of patients will let the clinic do all the hard work of getting the insurance approval, and then they back out. it is a lot of paperwork on the clinic's side, and i completely understand them charging a fee for it. maybe i'm bias because i work in mortgaging and know what a pain in the ass it is to complete a lot of paperwork on a file that never closes. it can cost the company a lot of money in labor hours.

HOWEVER, i would not be comfortable with their care policy. ok, so we know they are busy already, but if a clinic is so busy that they are already telling you that you can't call them, then i would say they are too busy for new clientel.

my doctor's office has a policy that their door is always open for questions, and they beleive that we should go to them first as they are the best source for answers. sometimes they have heavy call volume and cannot return a call immediately, but they also accept e-mail at any time, and regardless of how many calls they get a day, they ALWAYS return the call.

it doesn't sound like your doctor's office has a good amount of customer service, at least in the area of post op comfort.

No way would i give them 600 before i had insurance approval. That should be the first step. Donna

Hi Megan. I was certain I wanted the surgery. I had been researching and thinking about it for a year. I didn't think I could afford it...then I decided I couldn't afford NOT to. I have multiple health problems relating to my weight. But...I will say about 4 days post-op I started thinking "what on earth have I done to myself". I was really depressed for a couple of days, then I told my friend about it who had just had the same surgery (we work togther...how cool is that!) and she started laughing and said she thought the same thing. So I guess it is normal to wonder that after you do it, but now I am so glad I did do it...except when it comes time to make the payment....arrrrg!

I agree with both sides of the coin, $600 is a small price to pay for a new lease on life, my concern is that they say it's non-refundable even if insurance denies coverage and I can't have the surgery. They also won't even attempt insurance approval until after the appointments and the fee is paid. The other thing that made me kind of nervous about the whole thing is that in the patient welcome letter it basically says "don't call us we'll call you", your "allowed" to call them once to see how the process is going and that's it. I understand that they don't want to be inundated with calls from anxious patients but if I have questions I want to be able to pick up the phone. This is a prominent surgeon at a prominent university hospital. Not the best first impression.

I think I'm going to look elsewhere.

On a side note Donna, I hope you and Blanche have a long healthy and happy life together. Congratulations:)

With this new information, I would definitely go somewhere else. It's a horrible bedside manner to start out with!

when i first replied to this thread, i was half asleep, so i only paid attention to the fee part.

Even if i would have paid for the fee, i still do not regret my decision to go self pay. granted, i am only a month out, and im having sugar fits, but i can already tell how much my appetite has been curbed.

Thanks for all the great advice, ya know when ya just don't have a good feeling about something it's probably better to look elsewhere----so that's what I did.

Called South Jersey Bariatrics on Monday and I have an appointment for this Friday--woohoo!! Their program fee is $250 as opposed to $600, and Tina their bariatric coordinator couldn't have been nicer and was happy to answer the questions that I had.

Can't wait to be in the recovery room