I have tricare insurance. My surgeon received the "paperwork" from Tricare and has scheduled my esophagram, psych, nutrition ... all this week. I know they want info regarding previous attempts at weight loss ad comorbidities if any (arthritis, and narcolepsy that i am not getting tx for, is all I have) and I have already collected all that. I have had several medicaly supervised attempts at weight loss which is documented. In fact, I have continued to gain. My current BM is 41.

I am hoping someone can give me any info on how easy/difficult Tricare is to work with. So far the only person I found on here who used Tricare was easily approved but she was much larger...she assumes that is why there was no difficlty for her. I would appreciate any info. I'm so ready and motivated, but so afraid the rug will be pulled out from under me.

Thanks!

I have Tricare Standard. My insurance was pretty easy. I did the paperwork and my doc's office did the rest. I had sleep apnea and a few other comorbitities<sp>. I think after my doc sent in the paperwork it wa about 2 weeks before they got the letter from Tricare.

Good Luck!

Thank you Ann!

I am not banded yet but I got an approval to see a surgeon. I have all my pre op tests already done. I have my first appointment with Dr. Searles, June 3rd. I can't wait. Hopefully he will be able to to send all my papework to Tricare shortly after that. I have to keep my fingers crossed. I will let everyone how it went after my appt. Jennifer

My tricare experience has so far been easy. I got the referral to see a civilian surgeon with no problem. My surgeon has pretty much held my hand through all my pre-op appts; Now I am just waiting for the dr office to submit my paperwork for approval, and the suspence is killing me! I got my referral on Feb 5th of this year from my PCM and the only thing that has taken me so long is my stupid blood test showed my TSH levels were elevated so I had to have that redone. But when I saw my PCM for the lap band referral he also put in a referral for a sleep study and found that I have sleep apnea so these last 4 months have been ALOT of dr appts for me...

My Tricare experience has been fairly easy. I too got a referral to a civilian surgeon, they helped me get through the other appointments. I told myy PCM about my attempts to lose weight, but I didn't have documentation, although I could possibly go back 20 years and find bank statements etc--they didn't make me. I have high BP as a co-morbidity, and was recently determined to be pre-diabetic. My only delay was the chest xray showed a mass on my heart, so I had to have a CT scan to make sure it wasn't anything serious. Once that cleared, I got my approval from Tricare in a few days. My pre-op appt is 6/8 and surgery is 6/9

I have tricare insurance. My surgeon received the "paperwork" from Tricare and has scheduled my esophagram, psych, nutrition ... all this week. I know they want info regarding previous attempts at weight loss ad comorbidities if any (arthritis, and narcolepsy that i am not getting tx for, is all I have) and I have already collected all that. I have had several medicaly supervised attempts at weight loss which is documented. In fact, I have continued to gain. My current BM is 41.

I am hoping someone can give me any info on how easy/difficult Tricare is to work with. So far the only person I found on here who used Tricare was easily approved but she was much larger...she assumes that is why there was no difficlty for her. I would appreciate any info. I'm so ready and motivated, but so afraid the rug will be pulled out from under me.

Thanks!

I have Tricare and my process was a bit difficult. Mainly because my surgeons office made it that way. Once I got all the information to Tricare I was approved in 3 days. I had a BMI of 36.4 and elevated blood pressure. Nothing else. Of course I documented my knee pain (which results from sports but could have been weight related) and back pain (from sports as a child as well) but could have been from weight. I started the process on 4/25/09 and was banded on 5/21/09. I'm a week and a half post op now. Good luck!

Thank you all for your info. You have helped a great deal. The only other question is... did anyone have any difficulty getting a letter of medical necessity from their PCP? With Tricare/military health care and never seeing the same doc, this can be difficult I would imagine.

Again my thanks!!