Question #2

lol...I have noticed it!  Everyone here has been pleasant on this forum and some have emailed me separately and offered their support as well.  So far so good!

My experience was that both of my doctors wanted to follow and still want to follow my progress.

Yeah, they did say that the after care was long term and that you had alot of check ups.  But I'm ok with that.

Hi and welcome!  I felt the same way when i got started.  I wanted to get it all done as soon as possible and in between my appointments i had a zillion questions rolling through my mind.  Depending upon what type of insurance you have, the requirement will vary. Most insurance want the mutidisciplinary program so your best bet would be to chalk up that first weigh-in to experience and start with the GBMC program and stay with it until you are ready to submit for insurance approval.  This is what I ended up having to do.  You are starting at GBMC with a new staff there.  They have one less surgeon, a new nutritionist, a new insurance coordinator, new office manager, several new office staff, 2 new therapists to facilitate ther support groups.  I hope the program is even better.  I wish you the best of luck. 

Thanks responding!  I think I'm going to start with GBMC and do the 3 month multidisciplinary and go from there.  Hopefully everything will go smooth.  I will meet with my doctor the day after just to update him and let him know exactly how I will be proceeding.  My PCP is cool, so he will help me in any way that is need.  I have his full asleep.

I'll echo what most have said here. I have Aetna, and I had my surgery with Dr. Moein, so hopefully your experiences will be similar. Except for a short delay in my approval (took a month), my process was relatively quick, and went very smooth. I know there have been many changes at GBMC in our program, but I'm quite happy with how things have evolved there, even though there are several people I will miss. Dr. Moein is a prince, and the current staff are all very helpful. Even the medical assistant in the office, who previously hadn't been that great seemed like a differnt person (for the better) when I was there a few weeks ago. You are going to be paying so many co-pays for your surgeons visits, for your diagnostics, and possibly for the hospital. Plus, a program fee for the surgery. Not to mention all of the appointments.  Adding your PCP to the mix is unnecessary at this stage. GBMC's program is multi-disciplinary, in Aetna's eyes. So, they only required me to do 3 months. My first visit was in July, my third in September, and they submitted for approval after the 3rd visit, and I got approved on my first request.  The only thing I needed my PCP for was a letter of medical necessity, which I believe was requested by Aetna. I also used him for my pre-surgery clearance bloodwork, EKG and chest x-ray. I hope this helps!

Hi!  Thanks for responding.  Well hopefully by the time I get in there everything will be running smoothly.  When I spoke with someone in the office they did say they were going through some changes.  So do you only go up there monthly and that is it?

Actually, now that I am post-op, I go every 3 months. I went at 1 week, then one month, then 3 months, now I will go at 6, 9 and 12 months, and then I think it's 18 months, and 2 years, and then annually. If I have questions in between, I can call the office anytime, or submit them via the website. I've gotten good responses from both methods.

Yeah they did say that there would be alot of post-op appointments, but that is fine with me.  I have called the office with a few questions and they were helpful.  I haven't tried submitting questions via the website, but I'm sure that will be in the future...lol