weight loss institute of arizona

Soooooooooooooo......who's up for brunch somewhere after the "Walk"???  I know it's about exercise and not food but if I go to all the bother of hauling myself somewhere at 6 a.m. to hang out with weight loss buds then I want to extend the party for as long as possible!!!!

Any suggestions?  Anyone interested? Jeanna!  I just Love you!  You are such a peacemaker! ..... It seems we have to rotate in the "surgeon's" contest at least every 3 months or so!  You are right!  We LOVE our own surgeon and swear their program is the most comprehensive and someone else always offended us somwhere else! .....  It's a good thing we have that happy thing going on afterwards!

I always cringe when some newbie posts the open question "so, who is the BEST surgeon"!  Yikes!  It starts all over again!

I personally think Dr. Oh in Seattle is the very best in the entire world!  He wasn't my surgeon but ......Here I am needing a revision!    He was a very nice man though and at the time I knew he was the very best!.....the surgeon I used to work for was the very best too but again; some didn't think so.....the surgeon I've helped out a bit recently is totally the very best but alas; some actually think that another surgeon is better!

I guess we're all as individual in our surgical choices as we are in our losing!  It is incredible to have this many choices!

My note to those thinking of going SOTB though.......for just $1,000.00 more you can have your surgery done here, with free fills and follow-up for a year and help a few minutes away if there are complications!  Why take a chance with your life!!!!

I'm up for brunch!!  I can't wait for the walk.  I can use all the exercise w/o kids I can get!

Ok ALL, I think we all have won having the surgery!!!!!!!!!!!  I have heard good things about the Bridges program, but I chose Dr. Debarros and Dr. Orris because they do the surgery together.  Plus just reputations, but Paul stinks, I agree, but like you said, you can't let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch. Next...SATURDAY SUPPORT, next one is on Oct. 13, in the classroom #208.  It is great, it is like a bunch of us losers all getting together as a family and enjoy each others experiences.  I think they start at 1:00, I will contact Jen to let us know more.  Pleas come and have some fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to the Weight Loss Institute of Arizona & was in hopes of having surgery using Dr Orris. This was 2 years ago. The lady that was submitting to my insurance did not give me the correct information. I spent lots of money on my deductable & out of pocket costs to have all the pre op tests done. After all that they tell me they were not going to  submit to my insurance because I wont qualify. Would have been nice to know that up front. Very poor customer service from them. Anyway I went SOTB to Ensenada Mexico paid $12,500  and am very very happy with my choice. Good luck to anyone who uses them. Laura

I have not heard anything good about the weight loss institute of arizona either. I have not personally been there but a freind went to start the process and felt like she was just another number being pushed thru the line. She is still checking with other local Dr's. I know that she will not go there because of the way they treated her. I personally went to Dr Aceves in Mexicali. I had the best care ever and reccomend him to everyone.

I also had a bad experience at the weightloss institute. I feel like they waisted my time and insulted my intelligence. It is my opinion that they are mainly in the business for the money and not to help people. After attending 2 seminars I made several calls to the office before my initial visit to find out the cost of the consult and other costs. I provided them all of my insurance information, as well as checking into it my self. I was told that the consult and first day would only cost me 25.00 deductable. So I show up to there office and the first person I meet with is Paul. He seemed to be a nice enough guy until he pulled out his paper work and started telling me that I was responsible for 2000.00 that day just to continue with the consult. I asked why they did not just tell me this on one of my several calls to their office to find out what it would cost me. Paul became very defensive with me. I wont go anymore into the my personal feeling on him or the office,                                                                                                                                                                                                    I will tell you though that I ended up using the Banner program and My insurance paid 100% of my operation and everything I needed to do pre op and post op. I paid nothing for my surgery not a deductable or co-pay or anything. I knew this before ever going into the other office and when they tried to take 2000.00 from my pocket even though they were getting paid at 100% from my insurance, that is heartless. I told them I did not have that kind of money and he tried to get me to finance it. I do not agree with taking advantage of people like that. I would never recommend a business that would. 

I hope no one on this board is getting PAID to deliver information about one office or another - because that is just bad ethics.....

But anyway - Yes - I am a patient of Dr Orris and Dr DeBarros at the WLIAZ. They are both great guys. I was very pleased that they were doing my surgery.

With that said - I would NEVER recommend anyone go to the WLIAZ because of their poor scamming practices when it comes to financials. If you look them up on Better Business Bureau of AZ - they have 3 hits against them all in the last year. The weird thing is that the business is listed under Paul Barros (weird that he is related to Dr DeBarros - but the last names are so similar, but different - fishy if you ask me).

They have their whole rip-off scam down to a 'T'. If you are an insurance patient, they give you certain "quotes" at your first appointment - but then after all is said and done, you end up owing a considerable amount in excess of the "quote". They say it is because your insurance didn't pay as much as they wanted, and then expect you to fight with the insurance so they can get their payment.

How they get away with this is having 2 surgeon's perform the surgery - one in-network and one out-of-network. The in-network Dr gets his contracted rate for the procedure. The out-of-network Dr gets to charge an outragous amount of money to your insurance - knowing well that they will not pay the full amount - then you end up getting stuck with the difference of what your insurance pays and what WLIAZ billed.

I can go on and on for days as to how they scam their patients. They are not up-front and honest with their patients - they can get REAL estimates from the insurance companies if they worked with them more often - then the patient would not be mislead. However, I think that would lead to more patients not signing up for their program which leads to loss of profit for their business.

One more quick rant is their $1000 support program. This is the biggest joke. Their is no "Support Program". They have monthly meetings where people get together with the dietician to talk. They also say you will have access to their message board and can phone them and ask questions at anytime. How is that a support program, let alone a $1000 support program?? (PS - insurance doesn't cover the "Support Program" - so it's all non-refundable out of pocket for the patient)

Again - I could go on and on for days. If anyone has any specific questions for me regarding my experience, private message me and I will let you know.

Sorry to be Debbie Downer - let's be positive and just remember no matter where we go - we got our procedure done - and that is all that is important!!

Tah tah!!

Thank you for submitting that info about WLIA.  Could you please email me? I need help on choosing a doctor. [email protected] This message is to redrum602. Thank you

I've only spoken to Paul by phone and he helped me set up all of my consults in one day.  I'm from New Mexico, so I wanted to make one trip and get all the initial stuff done that day.  I think I worked with Victoria for the financial stuff.  She was very friendly and seemed trustworthy...now I'm afraid that I might be getting screwed over too??  I am a self pay, but my insurance is going to pay for a hernia repair and a couple days in hospital.  I think they may have "fudged" the numbers for how much the hernia repair/surgery/hospital amount that my ins. is going to pay because it was quite LOW.  I've had surgery before for my gallbladder and only stayed one night in hospital and it was MORE than what WLIAZ is saying my insurance will pay.  I think they are probably getting more from my insurance and just not taking it off my bottom line....I am going to ask questions of my insurance and WLIAZ.  I absolutely refuse to pay them any more than they quoted me on my invoice.  I'm already quite miffed that I won't get free fills for a year, as I could have sworn that I was told a couple different times that fills were free for the first year!!! Thanks for bringing all of this stuff to my attention.  I really liked Dr. Orris and Dr. DeBarros and I plan on sticking with them, but I will most definitely be asking questions about the money side of things!!!  And getting things in writing from here on out!!!