I'm sure this question has been asked before...

How long was it between your first visit with a surgeon to your surgery date?

I'm trying to get a rough idea of the time I am looking at if I still want to move forward with this after the seminar next Tuesday. I understand that each person is different, but I am still curious.

Thanks!

Edited November 18, 200916 yr by hlubag
Typo

I just had my first visit with my surgery yesterday. My surgery is scheduled for December 30th. It could have been sooner, but I chose to wait because of me opening my new business.

My consult was on Nov 3,2008/ Surg Sept 18th, 2009. Change of Insurance January 1 2009, Then 6 months of supervised diet. Seemed like forever, but worth the wait.

My first appt was in Sept and my surgery date is Dec 3rd. It depends how fast your insurance authorization comes back. Mine came back in 5 days. Federal BCBS is great! Good luck!

June 14th to Sept 30th. But I was self pay, no waiting for insurance

My consult was in March. I was approved by the surgeon and my insurance co in late July. Surgery was Aug. 11, 2009.

I called the surgeon's office in late August, found out he was having a seminar the second Thursday of September. I went to that. Which, by doing so, got me a free first consult with the surgeon.

It took me a while after the seminar to finally complete the paperwork and mail it in so we could set an appointment. My initial consult was on November 2. I then had my psych and deitician consults on November 10, and we set a date this week for December 17.

I am self-pay so I don't have to complete any prerequisites that an insurance company may require.

I could have sent all my paperwork in earlier, but I knew with my work schedule, I wouldn't be able to have my surgery until Decmeber anyway, thus part of the reason for the delay.

I saw my surgeon on the 6th or 8th of January 2009 and had surgery on the 18th of August 2009. But I had to do a 3 month pre-op diet that was required by my insurance Aetna. Also, my surgeon is booked months out to begin with.

My consult was on 11/3 and my surgery is next Wed, 11/25. I'm self-pay, so it was pretty quick!

Amy

My consult was June 15th. My surgery was July 28th.

I'm insured.

I've got Aetna and the make you wait 3 months.

My first consult was September 18, 2009. I have my last on January 6, 2009 and at that time the paperwork will be submitted to the insurance company.

My first consult was 9/25 and I'm getting banded 11/25. My initial surgery date was 11/11, but I was supposed to go to NY for vacation in the beginning of November, so I pushed it back. I have Anthem BCBS.

I made the call for the seminar early January of this year. The next available seminar was 2 months later. I then had 3 months supervised diet/nutritionist/psych evaluations/etc.

I had my first meeting with the surgeon (the official "consultation") after the 3 months diet. They submitted my paperwork to the insurance company, which initially denied the claim, but reversed the decision a month later on appeal. Had the surgery on August 21st.

So approximately 8-9 months from when I made the first call for a seminar to the surgery date. My surgeon said this was fairly normal, and the average time was 6-12 months from start to finish.

I guess you can see that it varies. The biggest factors will be insurance vs. self-pay, health condition (will have have to go through extra pre-op testing for various things) and how soon you can get in for all of your appointments.

I had a consult 11/20/2009, I am self-pay and I have to do minimal testing (Psych, ekg, chest xray and note from PCP). I asked the surgeon if he thought January would be an okay time to do it and he said that would be more than fine.

I too was self-pay. My initial consultation was 1/2/09 (I never went to a seminar as my doc offered the option of individual consultations). My surgery was 2/10/09. I had to do EKG and stress test, chest xray, upper GI, and sleep study.

My 1st weigh in was on June 29, 2009 and my surgery was November 18, 2009!