Did everyone's insurance require a 6 month medically supervised diet record be in their health history?

If that's the case I'll never be approved. I haven't had that.

:eek:

Susan

Mine required a 12mth supervised and just got mydenial letter yesterday. It stincks

Mine required a 12 month supervised diet, too. And I got denied the first time I was submitted because I hadn't lost the required 5% (required by my insurnace company, NOT ALL ins co's) of my excess weight. So I buckled down and did it the next month.

Please don't think you'll never get there. If you had started going to the doctor when you started researching the band, how many months would you have had in by now? So start RIGHT NOW. Monday morning, call you INSURANCE company, NOT the doctor's office. Have your card in hand and call the insurance folks and ask them to email AND snail mail you a copy of the requirements to be approved. What EXACTLY does the "six month supervised diet" mean? For me it meant going EVERY month and seeing my DOCTOR and I HAD to be WEIGHED every SINGLE month. It all had to be documented in the monthly office visit notes by my MD. Those notes NOT A LETTER, but the notes themselves were what had to be sent to the insurance company. I could not miss a month. EVERY MONTH.

But every insurance company, and heck, every policy can be different. That's why I always tell folks to call your insurance company FIRST (with your insurance card in hand) and find out what the requirements are and which doctor they will pay for you to see. Some will only pay for certain ones. If you've gone and found a doc you like and then find out s/he isn't covered by your ins co, that just adds to the stress.

Then call on Monday morning and make an appointment with your doctor, take the first available slot, maybe you can still make it in before the end of December, that would be your first month down. Make sure you discuss your weight, what you are trying to do and how you plan to change your diet and exercise to lose weight. This is VERY important (if the ins co wants office notes): the MD MUST document at every visit that you are discussing your weight loss attempts. My ins co accepted things in the notes like:

Patient has cut out refined sugars in her diet

Patient is walking 30 mins per day

Patient is logging her calories on fitday.com

Patient is using SlimFast as a Meal Replacement for two meals per day

and stuff like that.

GOOD LUCK!

My Ins. Co. required at least 3 documented weight loss atemps. I had been to Weight Watchers 6 months and had used Xenical for 6 months. A weaker strenth formula of Xenical is being marketed over the counter as ALLI. Have you not tried any diets long term before?

Thanks faithmd I woke up yesterday and work on my appeal letter.

Colleen

Also forgot to mention I never missed one of my nutrition appt.Colleen

dont give up youll get it mine denied me too until my pcp wrote a letter of recommendation. that usually does the trick with insurance companies. to have a your pcp and surgeon both write a letter of recommendation. good luck youll get it.

It's not always that they need a letter of recommendation. But if that's it, certainly it can't hurt.

Hopefully the sent a very explicit reason why you were denied in your denial paperwork. Then just work on that.

As I mentioned for me I hadn't lost the required weight, I didn't have to write an appeal, I just buckled down and lost the 16# I needed to in the next month and then reapplied.

As the poster above me said, don't give up, you will get there.

Well if I loose anymore my bmi will then be to low I think it will be around 38

i dont think 38 is low isnt a normal bmi around 29

You can always call and ask your insurance co. what they require. I know it varies widely depending on where you live and the kind of insurance you have. When I started seeing my Dr. about 2 years ago I wasn't thinking about weightloss surgery. She worked with me and set up a medically supervised diet with weightloss meds. I was able to lose about 20pds but then completely stalled. When I decided to have surgery, all of my appointments were already done. If you have any paper work from previous diets, get them together. Copies of cancelled checks will work as well!

Please hang in there, I'm sure everything will work out for you!

Jenn