Today sucked!!!!! gotta vent!!!!

OH MY GOSH I am so mad, I have been working on WLS surgery a year today thru Vocational Rehibilitation. All was passed with Voc. and I faxed everything in on Monday to the Bariatric Center. They called me today and told me that I had to do a 6 month Dr. Supervised diet, even tho I had 16 years of weight problem medical records. Reason was becasue I was a Voc. Rehab patient. I was so pumped becasue everything was going so smooth and after the WLS seminar last month they gave me a Dec. date for first consultation. I wont get to start the Dr. Supervised diet until probably January until I get some medical bills paid off from knee surgery and guess what? My insurance wont cover those Dr. visits each month becasue they are a weight issue!! So now it looks like it will probably could be next August or who know when.Sorry I just had to get this off my chest. Oh yeah besides my good breakfast of oatmeal, and chicken salad for lunch, then I got the great news sooo..... I have eaten a mushroom swiss burger, fries, mountain dew, 5 oreos and milk,  doritos,  and a big handful of MM's. Now I have the worst stomach ache possible, I see puke time ahead of me!!

Well although what you add sounds somewhat yummy, (I don't eat mushrooms : ) )  I will tell you this, you cannot give up.  I think that you will find, it is worth it.  I just had the surgery 8 days ago and so far I have lost 12 pounds!  Do the diet, you will feel better because you will lost weight.  I will recommend Alli.  I used Alli and lost 30 pounds.  There is no way you could visit your doctor once a month for let's say...Hmm, a runny nose, or some very simple symptom.  This way they could document your weight for six months.

Just an idea!!

Thats a really good idea, I hadnt even thought about that. A runny nose insurance will cover!! Did you have to do the 6 month diet? Did the Alli give you bowel problems? Exactly how does it work? Thanks for any info.

I did not have to do a 6 month diet but I did have to show 5 year of weight history.  The Alli works by only letting your body absorb 75% of the fat you eat, so the other 25% is not absorbed which is how you lose weight HOWEVER and this is a big however, everything you eat has to eat less than 30% fat from calories or less so example like if you ate something that was 100 calories only 30 of those calories could be from fat.  It is just a low fat diet, and I found it to be very tolerable.  The thing is that if you eat something that you are not supposed to eat you will have sudden and I mean, sudden diarrhea.  I did not experience this as much because I tried to eat as good as possible.  It is a great way to get ready for the surgery, really taught me how to eat.  I could answer any more questions that you have.  Hope it helps!!

Check and see what exactly they want - CIGNA required 6 months of weight loss only - nothing else was to be discussed at these appointments. (No ingrown toenails, sore throats, etc) Good Luck !!
- Iris

What about Weigh****chers? Will they accept their records? If so you could start that this next week and I am sure it doesn't cost nearly as much as Doc's visits.

Yeah they are telling me that it has to be a Dr. specailzed diet. So Weigh****chers was what I was thinking about while going to the Dr. once a month. But I do have to see if my Dr. will give me another diagnosis when I go becasue my insurance wont cover visits for weight loss issues. Im in alot of debt right now with medical bills from a recent knee surgery, so if insurance wont cover the visits I will have to wait a couple of months before starting this process.

My DH is on Medicare.  For their 6 mo doc supervised diet they can ONLY discuss his diet.  The surgeon's office gave us a sample of EXACTLY what had to be discussed at each meeting - exercise recommendations, diet recommendations, psych attitude, and the progress from the last mo. etc.  If ANYTHING else is in the notes or coding, Medicare won't accept it!  My DH is diabetic, so in the months when he goes for his regular diabetic check up, he makes one appt for the diet, another the next day for the diebetic check.  Also, he has to have one visit in each calandar month for 6 CONSECUTIVE months  Luckily his med sup picks up everything Medicare doesn't cover.  Also, in Feb, when we bagan this he was SOO upset that it was gonna take an additional 6 mo. (I was self pay, no ins, had surgery 2 weeks after I made the decision).  But with all the extra tests required by Medicare at least we are sure there are no serious problems with his health.  And he is STILL going in to see the doc monthly, although he has finished the 6 mo, just to be sure the ins can't complain that he did SOMETHING wrong when it finally comes down to getting approved!  With insurance you have to be sure you know ahead of time, EXACTLY what they require and be sure you cross all your "t's" and dot all your "i's".  It sucks that you have to pay for it all yourself, though!

Yes for sure it difinitely sucks to have to pay out of pocket for this surgery. Thanks for the advice, Im getting over the mad spell and try to focus on getting started with this 6 month diet "THING". What if in those 6 months I dont loose any weight or even gain then what happens?

Not sure with your ins.  With Medicare it depends on the BMI.  At my DH's BMI he has to at least NOT GAIN.  They are encouraging him to lose, of course.  If his BMI was higher, he would be required to lose!  He has only lost 13 pounds since Feb.  Which is pretty good, for him, since he had been inching UP a few pounds a month for the last MANY months before that.