Insurance Q: "document EVERYTHING" ?????

Hi, I’m starting my 3 months multidisciplinary program this month. Several people have been telling me to make sure I “document everything!”

I want to know what this means.

Are there specific things I need to make sure the RD, MD and exercise specialist all document?

Are we talking about more than height and weight here?

Am I supposed to be keeping my own records as well?

If someone could give me some sort of definition for the word, “everything” I’d be much obliged.

Jennifer

I didn't have to document everything since I didn't have this requirement, but maybe use fitday that way you can print out your food logs and exercise charts. I have read that some insurance companies want very detailed records of exactly what your eating and what you are doing to lose weight. You could keep these records and then have them signed into your medical charts?

Okay, first of all, you need to realize that the insurance company isn't going to accept your own records. They want official doctor records. In your case, I'm assuming the multidisciplinary program includes a nutritionist, a physical fitness expert, and a psychological evaluation. Many times the hospital that will be performing your weight loss surgery offers these "programs" as a part of their overall weight loss surgery program. In this case, it's a piece of cake, because these programs are specifically designed by people who know exactly what insurance companies are looking for. They've had experience with the insurance companies. They will carefully document everything for you and submit it all to the insurance company. All you have to do is show up and follow the program. The only exception is: most of the time, the nutritionist will require that you start some kind of journal recording what you eat each day...and the exercise specialist might make you keep track of your work-out regimen. But even then, you won't send that to the insurance company yourself...you'll submit it to them to put everything together and send off to the insurance. Now, if you're not lucky enough that your hospital has a structured program like this...and you're just randomly finding a nutritionist, a physical fitness expert, and a psychologist on your own; then it's a little trickier. Chances are that they aren't going to know for sure what is needed. I would make some phone calls and find out exactly, but I can almost guarantee you that for sure you will want them to take your weight and height and document it. You should ask them to please contact your insurance to talk to someone about exactly what they need. Finally, you should have them send all of their records to the hospital and surgeon. Even though the insurance expects documentation from the experts, it wouldn't hurt if you kept records yourself as well. Write down the dates that you meet with them, your height and weight, and and the details about what requirements they asked of you. Keeping good records is a good idea in case for some reason, they accidentally forget to submit one of your visits or something. If you have everything well-documented, it makes it a lot easier to call them up and say, "Hey, the insurance company seems to missing the record of my visit on August 8th at 10:00 am. Can you find that record and send it again?" It's just a way for you to make extra sure. Good luck!

A couple months ago someone posted some forms that they used to document their stuff through their doc.  Maybe whoever that was would be nice enough to repost since they seemed very helpful.