UHC and Exclusion

I am interested in RNY surgery; however, my health insurance policy through UHC has an exclusion for "surgical and non-surgical treatment of obesity, including morbid obesity."  Any advice on how to "get around" this exclusion?

Find out if your employer is self funded. If they are try talking to HR to get them to overturn this exclusion. Best of luck, fight the good fight.

Unfortunately, my insurance is not self-funded. So, I guess it's either self-pay or no surgery.

Hello there, I also have an insurance that has an exclusion and I am fighting all the way. I made so much noise and now I have the corporate office trying to help me bypass the language barrier of the exclusion. Basically what they thought me was that if my doctor reuqested pre-certification for gastric bypass surgery as medically necessary for the treatment of the co-morbidities like sleep apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc, it would not be treatment for obesity but treatment for the other ailment. Got it?  Let me know if you need more details. Good luck

Did trying to bypass the language barrier by re-wording the request really work? I have UHC Choice plus and they won't even budge, I've tried everything under the sun  and "Nuttin!" Kind of curious....

I will be sending the rest of my paperwork tomorrow and we should find out within a week. The people from the insurance are really eager to help me because I really made a lot of noise and made them feel sorry for me. I guess it will all depend on your exclusion. My states that they do not cover any treatments of obesity unless it is caused by sickness or injury. I am now re-submitting it and requesting approval for gastric bypass surgery as for treatment of my sleep apnea and other co-morbidities. I am also including a lot of letters of endorsement from doctors ans studies. Let me know if I can help in any way. Good luck

Keep up the fight!  I too have UHC with the same exclusion.  I plan on fighting all the way if I need too.  The exclusion is very vague and is written under "Other exclusions" in my policy with one line with the same grammar as yours.  I would think that this would be easy to fight, as it can be interpreted so many different ways.  What do they define as "morbid obesity?  If they do not cover it, I plan on visitng every specialist I can for every symptom I have that is covered under my plan and I am sure it will exceed the cost of this one surgery.  I have only just begun to fight!