Does anyone know how long they've been doing VSG in DesMoines?

I have been away from this site for awhile and came back to check in the other day. I'm wanting to have the sleeve but the closest I could find before was in Omaha. Now I see they are performing this surgery in DesMoines. I'm VERY excited about this because that's only about an hour and a half to two hour drive for me as opposed to a much, much longer drive.

I'm sure the doctors in Omaha have a lot more experience with the VSG but for me with having small children and frankly not much money to spend traveling DesMoines is just looking really really good to me!

Does anyone have any idea how long they've been doing the VSG there and which doctors actually performe the surgery? I believe I had seen Teresa LeMasters (sp?) does it but I'm not positive.

Hello to everyone else out there in Iowa and hope you are staying as warm as possible!!!

Dr. LaMasters did my sleeve in December.  The way I understand it, there haven't been a lot of sleeves done around here because most insurance companies wouldn't cover it.  I have UHC; they just approved the sleeve last fall.  Dr. LaMasters is great...I was a little concerned about the level of experience with sleeves and she was fantastic about explaining the whole process and was definitely comfortable doing the procedure.  Based on my reading and what she had to say, the sleeve is a whole lot easier to do than a bypass.  If you're interested in a sleeve, I'd definitely go see her!!!

Good to hear, thanks for letting me know. I have BCBS Wellmark and it's still considered investigational. There are people who have managed to get approved still so I'm going to give it a shot.

Good luck!!  From what I read on the VSG message board, more and more insurance companies are covering it.  That's a good sign...hopefully your insurance realizes that there are fewer complications and it's a cheaper procedure than RNY, so it makes sense to approve it in the way that insurance companies understand...the $$$$!!!!