Kaiser anyone???

I have been on the Kaiser - waiting list - for about 11 months now.... the wait is driving me nuts. Helen at the weight loss center told me to expect to start the program about a year from my approval date (1/16/04 - my B-day too) - anxious to know what to expect from Kaiser, what kind of notice do they give you? Who the surgeons are? All that fun stuff. My doc is even frustrated that she can't write them a letter of medical necessity to get them to move me up the list. My BP recently spiked and now I can't even exercise until it goes down... grrrrr Also - does anyone know the time and days of the WLS support meeting at Penrose in Co Springs? Might help my frame of mind if I attend a meeting or two.

penrose surport groups meets are the 2nd and 4th thursday of the month and good luck with the insurance company

I'm a Kaiser patient, too. I was approved for surgery in February, 2003 but Kaiser was changing its whole way of dealing with surgery patients. They also had a huge backlog of people they had to deal with. They contacted me in August, 2003 and told me that I was definitely approved and would be in line to have surgery. In March, 2004 they told me about a class, "Surgery Connections" that I had to take. It was great! It was 12 weeks long, taught by weight management people who were REALLY good, and we got to meet 17 other people in the same boat. We all were told that the goal was to have everybody receive surgery within 6 months of starting the class. I started the class on April 29th, 2004 and had surgery on September 27th, 2004. If you want to know more about my whole deal take a look at my profile or my blog at stecina.blogspot.com I really couldn't be happier with the way everything has worked out. My surgery was performed by a surgeon outside of Kaiser (Dr. Brown) and he was awesome, and he did the surgery laparoscopically which meant a quick recovery. I've lost 87 pounds since June (57 since surgery almost 6 weeks ago), and I'm really doing quite well. My other Kaiser buddies are all having their surgeries now and doing well also. Good Luck, Paul 379/292/200