Sleeve w/Aetna

Hi Folks,

Just called today to make an appointment with a sleeve doc; would like revision from LapBand to Sleeve. The receptionist told me that she has never got a sleeve approved through Aetna and it was a waste of my time to make an appointment. She said she's tried a ton of folks over the last 5 months and they keep denying it saying it's investigational and approve RYN instead.

Has anyone got the sleeve through Aetna? How did you go about it? I will also post this to the insurance board and the revision board.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Mandy

I'm going to be of relatively no help, except that I am not so sure you will get approved for anything with only 32lbs until your goal?!  I used to have Aetna, and now I have Cigna, and their requirements for revision were still that you had to be 100lbs overweight or a BMI of over 35 with 2 co-morbidities, or show a signifant failure of a previous bariatric surgery more than 2 years ago (due to no fault of my own (such as not following the diet) ), which means a failure of the surgery or device.  I still had to meet the requirements for regular bariatric surgery to get a revision.  Ok, I had Aetna like 2 years ago, so I'm not real sure on their policies today, but that is how it was for me.

this person had Labband in 2007

She might do better  on the revision board to post this question.

Good Luck