supervised exercise program?? --AETNA

Hello everyone. I am about to begin the process of seeking approval through Aetna for WLS. I applied last year through Cigna and was denied. Needless to say I'm trying to do everything correctly so this time around will be an approval. Aetna has a "mulitdisciplinary" approch where you can see your PCP, therapist, and nutritionist all each month for 3 months to be considered for WLS. The other option is just the nutritionist for 6 months. I am starting the 3 month cycle but am hung up on the verbage in their criteria that states you must also be in a "supervised exercise program" for the 3 months. Anyone know what will meet this need? They don't expect me to hire a trainer now, do they? It's bad enought I will be out of pocket roughly $600 just to have the 9 required appointments, before I even submit for approval.....Help! I do belong to a gym and maybe they can print a report showing when I visited the gym and worked out?????? I appreciate any insight! Jezzie

Jezzie, good luck, I would verify first with Aetna, and assume nothing. They jerked me around so much I finally self paid, just to done with it. you don't want to do 3 months of physician supervised diet and then hav eot do another 3 months of supervised excercise. Good luck, steve

I agree with Steve that you should check, but remember also that you might get two different answers if you talk to two different customer service reps. That's just how Aetna is. I had my PCP document the exercise I was doing and did the 6 month physician supervised thing and was approved by Aetna in 24 hours. You have to make sure you give them absolutely everything they ask for and don't even think about cutting corners because you'll just end up wasting time. Good luck! Jan

HI JEZZIE I ALSO HAVE AETNA. IT TOOK ME 30 DAYS TO GET APPROVED. I HAD GONE TO CURVES EXERCISE PROGRAM AND THEY ACCEPTED THAT. I AGREE THAT YOU GET ALL DIFFERENT ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS ,DEPENDING ON WHO YOU TALK TO. GOOD LUCK LIZZ

I was looking into doing this, when I found out that Aetna is no longer covering WLS after Jan. 1, even if you are approved before then. Because I don't have the three months to complete certification, I am seeking alternative avenues of completing the procedure. Good luck!

Thanks to everyone for the input. The nutritionist/ dietician I am seeing does both the supervised nutrition and exercise program. She had me get a pedometer and set goals for increasing my number of steps by a certain amount each month. TED- when and how did you hear about the Jan 1st deadline? Also, do you have Aetna HMO, PPO, QPOS?