It seems like the process is long before you even get a surgery date. How long did people have to wait?

I was told the shortest possible time would be about three months (I did my six-month supervised diet before I was formally admitted to the bariatric program, though. Although that was a requirement of my insurance company, not the bariatric clinic). I had my surgery about six months after starting in the bariatric program.

Depends on the requirements of your insurance and doctor. My insurance company required 90 days physician supervised weight management. When my first doctor went to get prior authorization I found out my insurance required me to have surgery through a "center of excellence." So I had to switch to a new surgeon. Luckily all the tests I did with first doctor were accepted by second. Call your insurance company and find out the requirements.

Edited February 19, 20206 yr by Uomograsso

Depends on insurance. I had insurance approval and a surgery date 2 weeks after my first appointment with my surgeon. I already had gotten my psych eval done.

I sent in my application via the computer at the end of October, had my clinic first appointment in late November, and am having surgery the end of March. No mandated timeline for insurance requirements, but I had things spaced out to wait for my new primary insurance to kick in in January to go with my existing coverage and only scheduled appointments and surgery around my work schedule at an elementary school. March 26th was actually the exact date I wanted all along!

Less then two weeks wrote a check and got it on!

My insurance didn't cover it.

It took me about a year to get the funds up to pay out of pocket. once I handed in the check, its waiting a few weeks to get the last bit of my Time Off built up and then its good to go!

Mine is going to be about 3-4 months. My insurance does not require any preop diet but my doctors office requires 3 months. I am glad they required it because there is NO way I would be ready for this if it was not for all of the appointments.

i was self pay. I decided on Sept 25th 2018 and my surgery date was Nov 8th.

My insurance required 3 months of supervised weight management. Nutrition appointments, labs, meeting with the support group. My first appointment was October 31st, 2019 - my surgery date is February 25th. But there is no exact time frame. Its completely up to the insurance company and your surgeon's office.

Good luck ?

Mine was 6 months of appointments and all the other tests I had to do, so I started in May 2019 and finally got my date in Jan for a March 3rd date. I was a smoker and had to be 3 months without cigarettes in order to schedule my surgery .

The one I can tell you the time went by very fast so, read read read and ask questions and before you know it your surgery will be scheduled, wish you the best of luck!!

I started my journey in April of 2019. I had to do 6 months of supervised weight loss and then had to get a million different clearances from hematology, cardiology, pulmonology, etc. I finally have my date set for March 20th.

I had my first appointment about getting the surgery in December 2019. It was just starting a medical journal for me. I was offered surgery during my second meeting in January 2019. During my first appointment with my dietitian (yesterday), I was given a date for surgery, which is April 27th.

I live in Denmark, meet the state's requirements of having it done for free, so I am only on my surgeon's program, I assume. The jumping through hoops part for me was simply getting blood work done, an EKG taken, a stool sample given and some weight loss. I also still have to do my 1-on-1 patient seminar thing in March, but I've got the date regardless for surgery.

I think I got my date so soon because I was pretty confident in my meeting about what I needed to do before and after surgery since I had researched a lot, had my current diet habits ready to be shared, and talked about what my support systems through out this are and would be.

My doctor's office submitted to insurance company and I was approved a week later. Scheduled surgery for about a month and a half later. I could have done it sooner but I chose to wait until the MLK holiday so I could save a PTO day.

1 hour ago, MsMocie said:

I am curious on this insurance thing.

I live in Norway, and privat health care is sort of frowned up on. Our goverment principle is that everyone is entiteled to health care regardless of income. If you spend more than about 200 USD on deductibles you will have a free pass for the rest of the year, meaning health care won't cost you anything other than medication. And even that can be prescribed free of charge if you have a chronic ilness that requer medication. F.ex metformin is free for diabetic patiens.

I am very glad to live in this health care system. Even though things might take some time. That is one of the reasons I decided to pay for my own operation, because I didn't have "time" to go through all the public paper mills nd I just bought myself to the front que abroad.. We have health insurances, but that is mainly as an insurance that in case you lose income, you'll get some sort of payment to compencate for loss of it. F.ex if I break a leg or get cancer and lose my job, my insurance will cover the difference bwtween benefits (around 65% of my yearly income), meaning the insurance will cover 35% so I can keep living my life like I'm used to.

SO; US citizens or other; What does a health care insurance cost you? Is it "the more you pay the more it covers"?

Can everyone get an insurance? Do you have to have an employer? What's the hops on this? What is the coverage? Do one have to "buy" an insurance that covers bariatric surgeries and will you get it approved if you were already obese or sick when signing on the insurance?

there are about a billion different policies - all different - some are provided by your employer, or if your employer is small enough and doesn't legally have to provide it, then you can buy your own.

costs are all across the board. Deductibles are all across the board. What you have to pay once you've met the deductible is all across the board. This is what makes US health care such a nightmare.

as for mine, I have a $500 deductible. Once I meet my deductible, I pay 10% of whatever the cost is. There IS an out-of-pocket limit meaning whenever you get to that point, everything is paid 100%, but I almost never get that high (I think one of the few times I did was the year I had bariatric surgery)

I don't think there's a "typical" health insurance policy, though, so there's not really an "average".

as far as bariatric surgery goes, some policies cover it, some don't.

oh - and most people have to pay a monthly amount, even if the insurance comes with their job. I think ours is around $250 a month. We didn't have to pay anything per month originally, just the deductible, but that was YEARS ago.

for example, if my surgery was $30,000, I would pay the first $500, plus 10% of whatever is over $500. I can't remember what our out-of-pocket limit is, but let's say $5,000. So once I've paid $5000 of my own money, then insurance pays 100% of anything over that.

Edited February 19, 20206 yr by catwoman7

Yep, that's about right. It's insane how individual the requirements are. My personal insurance is through the school district but mandated by the state. I pay about $100 per month for just myself to be covered for medical, to the tune of $1200 off my paychecks each year. I didn't cover the family, as we are all covered by my husband's union insurance as well. He pays a percentage per hour, but it's paid by his employer over his hourly wage, so we never have seen it on his paycheck, so it never feels like an expense to us since it's negotiated and run by the union.

My insurance deductible is $200 per year. My husband's insurance deductible is $200 per year. Anything I'm billed goes first to my insurance, which pays 85% (leaving me responsible for 15%) and then to my husband's, which would have paid 80% so they cover the remaining 15% then put the leftover 65% they would have paid into a health savings account for me if I lose my other insurance. So basically once I meet those deductibles, I'm covered for 100% of medical charges. Up in the air are the co-pays my insurance has ($75 for Emergency visits and $200 for In-patient hospital, which are normally due at time of service). My husband's insurance doesn't have any co-pays upfront, so if I have to pay those things, I might have to submit reimbursements for those fees, such as when I'm admitted to the hospital for my VSG surgery.

The upside, neither of my insurances have any requirements for weight loss programs for bariatric surgery if I meet the BMI/comorbidity levels and they have very similar plans for what is allowed versus not allowed for coverage.