Dr. Jawad is having a support group meeting on Monday, 5/24.  I had my surgery done by him on April 14th and never had to pay an admin fee of any kind.  Actually, they billed my insurance company for the admin fee.  His main office is located in Ocala and the surgery is done at Ocala Regional Hospital, which is a great hospital.   Good luck to you.

yeah we really need to find people to get a meet up! do u know any others in our area that had it?

Dr. Jawad has an Orlando office and I believe that he will on occasion do a seminar here.  You might also want to look into Dr. Lou Harold,  http://www.louharoldmd.com/  .   He has his support group meetings at HealthCentral and the next one is tomorrow.

Red

First things first:

Find out from your insurance if they will approve you to have bariatric surgery and what kinds they approve (band/gastric sleeve, etc/rny).  Find out how much they pay for bariatric surgery!  Do you have a co-insurance payment (PPO)? (i.e., do you have to pay 10/20/30 or an even higher percentage of all of your bills? Or do you have an HMO where all you pay is your copay (which is usually very small); however, you must go within that HMO's network?  Those are important things to know prior to even thinking about getting your insurance to pay.

As far as the ever so popular "administration fee,"  -- there are doctors in the Central Florida area who do not require this fee upfront (Dr. Grossbard in Zephyrhills is one I know of).  But, nine times out of ten, the doctors who don't require the "admin fee" are not in your insurances network or they don't go to a "center for excellence" hospital that specializes in bariatric surgery (which might be another requirement of your insurance company you will need to check on!!  Do they reuqire you to go to a Center For Excellence hospital?).

Because of the nature of bariatric surgery, all copays/coinsurances are required at the time of service and generally all admin fees are required prior to you seeing the surgeon.  I see Dr. Murr in Tampa, Florida. I paid a $750 admin fee.  I have an HMO and I only pay the copays for my visits ($25). I'm fortunate.  Not everyone has insurance like I do.  And yes, I was fortunate enough to have the $750 admin fee as well. I have a friend who doesn't and she's having to save her pennies for her surgery.  Have garage sales, sell items on EBay, bake sales...whatever it takes. 

Also, IF your insurance covers bariatric surgery, it's more than possible you will need to have six months of documented CONSECUTIVE attempts to lose weight. You can do this by seeing your general MD every month for the next six months and he needs to document appropriately (the best way to educate your general MD on bariatric counseling is attending an ORIENTATION with anyone of the surgeons and they can tell you what to tell your MD).  Some MD's know and some don't.  If you have the money, you can see a nutritionist who can do the same counseling for you and possible even your insurance would cover it.  There's A LOT to learn about bariatric education and I'm very thankful I had to get all the education I've gotten so far! 

While you're doing this, save your pennies for the admin fees if you can't find a surgeon who doesn't charge one and your insurance will accept!  Have your garage sales, etc. and get educated!  Make a list of what your insurance covers, the hoops you have to jump through and set dates for reaching those goals.  I swear if you do it just how I've told you to do it, the time will fly by and you will have the money made!

Sooooo it looks like you have some homework to do :) However, the effort of all of these hoops you have to jump through is so very worth it!  I just wanted to be reaslistic :) 

Take care and let me know your progress!

Not all surgeons charge a program fee, but you might have to go outside of the Orlando area.  Get a lost of providers from your insurance company or start calling the surgeons listed on this site and find out who does not charge a program fee.

Red