I am on my path to lap band surgery, i have already been to the seminar and my consult an testing are setup for thrusday 10/16/08(very excited), after that appointment they will submitting to UHC for my approval. I aslso have already had my 5 years of weight history from my docotr sent to the surgeons office, since my UHC stated all i needed is to have a BMI of 40+ or BMI of 35+ with co-morbidites, i have a BMI of 39 and type 2 diabetes so i qualify there and they also stated my surgeons office would need to send the 5 year history of my weight. So just wanted to find out if anyone has or had UHC EPO in Texas and if they requested additional info other than the 5 year history that they stated they needed for approval and how long it took to get the approval? Thanks in advance for the info.

I have UHC in SC. You need to have a letter of medical necessity along with your 5 yr history. Your PCP should be able to do this for you. If not you can use your OBGYN since you go there once a year. My first surgeon had a sample of the letter with the info packet so I gave it to my PCP. I changed surgeons and my new surgeon said that they write the letter and send it to UHC for you. I still gave them the letter that my PCP wrote up. It never hurts to have more info than needed. I started my journey in the middle of July and got approval from UHC in the middle of Sept. My surgery date is Oct 29th. The good thing is that you don't have to do a 6 month pre op diet! We are very lucky! UHC pays for everything when you are approved. You may have to go do a sleep apnea test, upper GI, EGD, and you will deffniately have blood drawn. Depending on your UHC plan these tests are all covered except the co-pay! Good luck!

Thank you so much for your help, I actually found out today that I will only need the blood draw and my plan pays 100%. I did go ahead and get info from my pcp just incase but my surgeons office said I most likely won't need it since I have given them more than enough info and records from one of my other doctors. So I’m hoping for a quick approval.

Good luck with your journey! If you don't mind me asking are you from Houston?