Has anyone heard that there BCBS of michigan changed their supervised diet requirements for the surgery? Did they lower it from a 12 month supervised diet to a 6 month supervised diet? My surgeon mentioned it but he wasn't sure and didnt elaberate too much on it. Any guesses??? I would love to get this aproval sooner than later. Thanks for any responses. Patti :ranger:

A lot depends on who you have BCBS with. We have BCBS of Mi and it is through Teamsters and we don't need to have any supervised diet as of last January.

Where in Michigan are you from? Where are you having your surgery? I had mine done in Mexico and get my fills in Hillsdale. I live in SW livingston county.

Kari

banded 7-15-07

Dr. Ortiz

down 52 lbs.

lots more to go

:rolleyes:Hurley bariatrics. Dr. Kralovich is my surgeon and I am so waiting for this patiently. I am in Argentine/Linden area just a block south of the Livingston/Genesee County Lines. My BCBS is a ppom and a self pay that we have had for years. My husband kept it from one of his first jobs like 20 years ago. Where did you go thru to have yours?

I take my sister in for hers this Tuesday at the Barix in Ypsilanti, alot of mixed emotions for her lately.

Well thanks for your reply . Oh, one more thing, do you attend any support groups in the area, I havent been to any but would like to check them out and go with my sister to some too. Thanks, Patti

I live in Wisconsin and my husbands insurance is BCBS of MI - strange I know. When I got all my info from them in Oct 2007 they still required you to do 1 year of physian sup. diet or other ones like Weight Watcher/LA Weight loss. Dumn luck I actually had tried LA for the last year before going into wanting lap band

The one bad thing about BBCB is that they do not give a pre-approval, so you pretty much go into surgery only on faith that they will pay:(

So, if I were you I would call the help number on the back of your card and have them send you a letter stating everything you need to do before surgery-that really helped me.

I am switching to bcbs-MI in Jan.08 I have been ont he phone with them several times and the way it was explained to me was the you do not have to go to the doctor every month for 12 mos. The lady I spoke with said that would be a waste of time. However you need documentation for weight loss failure over the last 12 mos. I have been waiting for 1-1-08 to get here because I don't have a contract # yet and they say that each policy is different. We will have a ppo1 plan? Good luck to all - We sure don't need 12 mos to knoe if we are fat or not?!