Ok I really don't think I am crazy but.....

I went to my evaluation appt on Tuesday. The questions were seriously silly. Are you homicidal, suicidal, do you want to eat clay etc etc

after 2 hours of this stuff I go home and have a message that says the test is inconclusive and now I have to go back and take it again.

The sheer thought of sitting through that again is ridiculous. Anyone else dealing with this?

Hiya everyone!

I too did the 600 question test, then went back for an hour appt. with the psych. I am going to the Portland, Oregon Legacy Good Samaritan Obesity Institute and will have my surgery by Dr. Emma patterson at Oregon Weight Loss Center, soon, I hope. The psych I saw was Dr. Dale Veith, and I've got to tell you he was the neatest guy! He is himself a lap band patient and he understands what you are saying without any BS. Boy, I would love to have him to talk to everyday! LOL!

I have been working on all of this since October 16th and I have finally finished ALL of my pre-requisites and have as of Thursday been referred over to the surgeon. They say I should get a call within two weeks. What a road this has been to travel - I am NOT a patient person and this has taught me to "chill" and not expect everything to be done today. I see only good things in my future! Hope y'all do too!

Penny

Ha-ha! I am still waiting for my Psych eval (Feb 4). I was a Psych major and am very familiar with these tests and Psychologists' interviews. After reading these posts, I am intrigued as to how my PhD will behave in our meeting...

My psych test was several questionaires that I filled out myself in a little room. They were the stupidest questions I had ever seen and was laughing out loud all by myself. I kept thinking I was going to fail because I was laughing alone during a test! There were T/F statements like "I have flown across the ocean 30 times in the last month."; "I've been on 10 magazine covers in the last month."; If I lie on this test, I'll look better." Ridiculous stuff. It as a hoot!

Everyones evaluations are different and it obviously depends on the doctor you use. My surgery is going to be with Dr. Umbach who runs a bariatric center through our major hospital so their requirements are pretty strict since they have some type of accrediation blah blah blah thing lol.

Anyway, I went in on 1/8 for the evaluation... it was really long. We sat in her office for about 30 minutes asking things like do you make yourself puke? Do you love your mother? Did you father sexually abuse you?

Then they put me in a room with a test that had 422 questions on it ranked on a scale of 1-5 that took about an hour to do.

I went home and got a call that I failed the 422 questions which unless you're absolutely crazy isnt possible. Turns out that somehow partway through the test it looked like I skipped a question and everything was off 1 line.

So I went back in on the 10th and took the test... but this time they gave me a test they called MMR or MMI something like that it was 529 questions! this one took about 1.5 hours.

So all in all with waiting room time and everything I ended up spending about 4-5 hours invested in this.

I received the letter yesterday that the doctor and Phsycologists were happy to approve my surgery and felt that I was emotionally stable. WOW what a suprise I knew I was just fine but they wouldn't listen to me. LOL

Now I just have to finish 2 more dietitian meetings that my insurance requires! Hooray :wink2: Once I go to both of those 1 per month the doctor will send preauthorization request to my insurance!!!

My insurance covers the surgery as long as I complete the 6 months of dietitian classes :Dancing_biggrin:

Thank you everyone that posted here and the support you gave me while I waited for this issue to be worked out.

The test I took is the MMPI. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. I have to take the same test for my job (every 2 years). The one I take for work is actually a lot longer than the one I took for the lapband eval. Basically my test said that I was subjectively depressed and withdrawn, which my very smart physc chalked up to me being fat.

Just got home from first visit to surgeon, Dr. Jay Jan, where I was given the green light. All that is left is the ok from the insurance (UHC) which I already verified over the phone. They gave me the pre-op diet to follow - looks like I'll be losing quite a bit of weight, they're trying to starve me!

I'm getting so excited!!!

Have a great day everyone!

Penny

Congrats! Hope your insurance comes through quickly

Ok I really don't think I am crazy but.....

I went to my evaluation appt on Tuesday. The questions were seriously silly. Are you homicidal, suicidal, do you want to eat clay etc etc

after 2 hours of this stuff I go home and have a message that says the test is inconclusive and now I have to go back and take it again.

The sheer thought of sitting through that again is ridiculous. Anyone else dealing with this?

My psych actually had told me at one time that you should be stress-free in your life when having the surgery! Good one! As if anyone's life is stress-free!!! I would agree to tell them what you have to, cause they determine the surgery for you, from what I have found. I finally had my last psych eval on Wed, and now the info is all going to be submitted to insurance! Yeah!!!

My psych test was several questionaires that I filled out myself in a little room. They were the stupidest questions I had ever seen and was laughing out loud all by myself. I kept thinking I was going to fail because I was laughing alone during a test! There were T/F statements like "I have flown across the ocean 30 times in the last month."; "I've been on 10 magazine covers in the last month."; If I lie on this test, I'll look better." Ridiculous stuff. It as a hoot!

Those were my exact questions last week too! I was laughing hard and thinking they might think I was nuts. I had my sit-down yesterday and he said I come across in person the way I answered the questions. I told him some were utterly ridiculous and he agreed, but said some people do answer True that if they lie they will look better.

Good Morning,

Before the doc started my psych eval, i asked her about the purpose of the evaluation. She explained that the evaluation was expected to tell them whether i had a sound understanding of the things in my life that influence my weight, whether i had realistic expectations of the LapBand, and whether my personality and behavioral characteristics indicated a probability of success at using the LapBand as a weight-loss tool.

Sounds like some of you had to deal with some pretty far-out psych docs. Sad. Mine was gentle and i felt the questions she asked were effective in getting to the objective she described. I, too had to answer that questionnaire-don't remember how many questions-but since i understood the overall objective, it didn't upset or concern me that they were asking some seemingly irrelevant questions.

Mine was today and was very similar to this. She was kind, asked about my childhood, family life, eating habits and weight history...she said I was a good candidate. :rolleyes2: Oh, and there was no questionaire, just the doctor.

My psych eval was a three part test for a total of 580 questions. The test took me 1.5 hrs to complete. Alot of the questions were repeatative. I think it asked me 5 differant ways if I loved my Father.

When I went back for the results the Doctor spent 30 minutes telling me I might not like what he had to tell me. He spent another 20 minutes telling me how society frowns upon depression. I finally told him to quit beating around the bush and tell me the results. I was inwardly depressed was his conclusion based on the test results. I asked him what the hell did that mean? He said I was depressed and did not know it. He asked me what I thought about it and I said I did not feel like I was but would listen to what he had to say.

I was afraid he was going to reject my Lap-Band procedure. He wanted me to go to counseling but agreed that I needed to have the procedure.

I patiently waited for him to send the approval paper work to Surgical Nurse Coordinator, it took him three weeks to do so.

I now have my approval from Aetna and my surgical date set 2-11-08.

"....society frowns upon depression?" What the hell does that mean?! Sorry, that just seems odd for a Dr to say to someone! I guess one might become depressed just after that appointment. Whew. I have my surgeon, psych, and dietition appt next Wed. I have to bring a 3 day food diary for the dietition and pay her out of pocket. They said to count on it taking 3 hours for all of it. After reading these posts, I hope I don't have a huge silly test. And I'll be careful to keep my test answers in allignment! I love that....the answers were one line off! I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time though....

"....society frowns upon depression?" What the hell does that mean?!..

I was wondering the exact same thing! I feel like doctors always want to find something wrong. Oh well.

Actually it's kind of funny now that my test markings were one line off... I wonder what they were thinking. I bet I had some weird answers on things.

My test also asked me 5 different ways if I loved my dad and then in the next sentence asked if I wanted to hurt animals... Lord knows what I marked.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to having a good laugh over the test! I might even be disapointed if I don't get one! -Barb

I'm with you girl! I hope my Dr asks me some funny questions, cause a lot of waiting aroudn to be approved isn't veryfunny!