Hello everyone. I have a question. I have been doing this for 3 months now. I'm done with my weigh in's with my Doctor and I saw a Psychologist and Jan 6 I go to see the Dietitian. My question is, is all the other lab and testing done before or after your insurance company approve you for surgery.

Edited December 28, 200817 yr by help1977

My surgeon is head of bariatrics at a local hospital, and the hospital has an employee who does nothing but handle insurance for bariatric patients (that was a blessing!) So she knew I'd BE approved unless one of the specialists denied me for cause. In other words, she knew insurance would pay...if I didn't get the surgery it would be because of psych or cardio or some such. So I didn't get approval UNTIL I'd been to all the "specialists" and they knew I was green-lighted. Within 2 days after i'd seen all the nutrition, psych, etc.... my coverage had cleared and they scheduled my surgery and all the pre-op tests.

I started the process in Sept,08 and my actual surgery date was 11-04-08. My consult with the Doctor was the very first thing that I completed. I went to the dietary and the Psych consult. I then completed all the labs after the approval. The process went very fast for me. My Dr wrote his letter and I called the insurance the day that he faxed it. I had approval within the next two days. congratulations on your choice for WLS you will not regret the decision.:hurray:

I'm worry that I will go and do all this and Tricare Prime will not approve it. My PCP and the Psychologist said this would be good for me and they are backing me 100% but you never know about Tricare. It just seems like it takes so long to get everything done and the funny thing is, is that tricare doesn't make you do all of this but the Doctors office does.:hurray: