How long from the time you called to the day you had surgery did it take?

I know everyone's story is different but I'd love to get a very general idea of maybe what to expect as far as timing goes. I just made the phone call on Friday but they didn't answer, and I'm assuming I'll get a call back on Monday and I'm just way to excited to even start this process!

I would really LOVE to get it done before summer '18 just because I work A LOT during the summer so I wanna try and do it on my "down time", I'm hoping before May '18...

So how long did it take YOU from start to finish?

Your best bet is to call your insurance company. The surgery center will have to go by what the insurance requires. Some require no pre-surgical diet, some 3 months, some 6 months or more. Call the number on the back of your insurance card and ask.

I had lots of various setbacks with timing and money but if all had gone according to plan it would have been around 7 months. The biggest reason was insurance required 6 months of seeing a weight loss professional and a variety of tests. If you are using insurance it's really going to come down to what they require. Good luck and best wishes.

For me 2 answers, 1st time around it would have been around three months, but switched jobs and the new insurance required 2 more months of Dr. supervised diets. So once I got started again with the new insurance and new Dr. 2 months. But from start to finish including the time I put it on hold since I was at the new job (didn't want to start then 2 weeks later go out for this) around 10 months. But it really depends on what your insurance requires and how fast you jump through their hoops.

I've seen it take 3 weeks for self-pay. I've seen it take 2 years. Some never get approved at all.

I was self pay, and took about nine weeks. Would have been 2-3 weeks quicker, but my blood pressure was too high for a stress test and had to changed medications. And hadn't had to be on any since!

My insurance covered it, and I didn't have to do the 6 month diet like a lot of others. It took about 4 months, mostly because I had to wait for a psych appointment. I could have done it sooner if I wanted to pay out of pocket for that appointment.

I think I made my first PCP appointment in September or October of 2013 and had surgery in March 2014. Insurance only required that I have a psych eval. My surgeon required a upper endoscopy and, at the first one, I was found to have an ulcer, so that delayed surgery by a month - I was initially scheduled for February 2014.

I discovered that my insurance began covering the surgery mid year, the night before gall bladder surgery to be exact. Called my surgeon (who happens to specialize in WLS) and postponed the gall bladder.

Through pure determination and the willingness to take first available for every single appt, I was able to get it scheduled 2.5 months from that initial day. I had started the "phase II" diet the day I decided to do it (no carbs, no dairy, no fruit, no fats, just lean turkey, chick and fish and vegs) so I lost the fatty liver on the way to surgery.

I could have had it done in 2 months, but postponed 2 weeks so that I could finish end of year for my job. (Who then "eliminated" my position 4 days after I was back).

In the end it depends on your surgeon and your insurance company. I was persistent in scheduling and following up to get my various clearances. In most cases, I used sugar, but a couple required brute force, but I got it done.

Anyone have experience through Medicaid, seems to be everywhere I'm reading that they require a 6-month medical weight loss program to be followed. Kind of a bummer reading that but it is what it is!