Hello,

I'm new here and am seriously leaning toward lap band. My question is how long did you have to wait until the surgery was performed? I have read around that the wait can be as long as a year.

Thanks,

It all depends on who your insurance is and if they cover it or not..If you are a self pay you can be scheduled in as little as a week or sooner. I shceduled mine very quiickly, I went to MX for mine and was a self pay.

Hi,

I too am waiting to have surgery. I have to do a 6 month supervised weight loss, plus the 1st date I could get with my sugreon is in Feb 2006. From what his office has told me..I should have a surgery date early April. So for me it will be 7-8 months. It flies by trust me. It is actually good time to fully absorb what you are about to do IMHO.

Good luck!

Well I was very lucky. I saw my surgeon on January 6th and was operated on January 19th. I am in Australia so the Insurance thing is different...but I also got funding from my Superannuation account which came through in 10 days ..so that was FAST. I sort of think it must have been meant to be as it all fell into place so easily.

Thérèse

i was self pay - and was scheduled within 2 weeks of first inquiry with the surgeon

robinem, just wanted to let you know that the time period varies. I was concerned that I would have to wait 6 months or more according to info. that I read and what the surgeon's assistant told me, but I started everything on August 8th, I was approved yesterday, and my surgery is scheduled for the 7th of November. So, it only took 3 months for me. I'm guessing that it all just depends on your insurance coverage and where you live. I could be wrong, of course.

I spoke w/ my patient coordinator this past Saturday, and she gave me the option to schedule as soon as Oct. 25. That's not enough time for me to finish getting my funds together (self pay). So, I chose a later date of Nov. 17.

I was a selfpay-called doc on a thursday-spoke with coordinator on friday-was scheduled for surgery in Tijuana on the following wednsday;-) -didnt have time to blink-thank goodness I had money in savings and ebayed me some flight tickets.

3 months for me. Insurance gave the approval pretty quickly, but there were so many tests to do beforehand. It gave me time to mentally prepare.

Good Luck

Who did your surgery?

Since I had the cash, the only thing I had to wait for was the proctor who was assisting my doctor with the surgery, since I was my doctors first lapband patient. Hey I looked at it this way, two doctors for the price of one.

I was originally scheduled for Nov 18, but was postponed until Dec 6.2004, almost a year, boy time passes so quickly.

I was self pay in the US. Same thing for me, I got scheduled in very fast. I could have done it within a week but chose to wait a month just to be sure this was something I truly wanted to do.

My consult was in Mid-Dec, and my procedure was in Mid-March. The only thing that make it so I had a long wait was tht I needed to wait until Spring beak. I'm a full-time student and my husband has awesome insurance.

I started my process with the doctor and with insurance on 7/28 and I was approved on 8/12 with my surgery on 9/23.