what insurance do you have, and about how much is it a month(if you don't mind saying..)?

See you at Market of Choice, 6-7:30 p.m.!

Linda 

I had Dr. Patterson as my surgeon, but have seen Dr. Halpin on numerous occasions.  I find her to be extremely compassionate and wiling to answer any and all of my quesitons.  I really like her. 

I didn't do the program in Salem but I did do the program in Portland for a year. You have to (at least in my case) go to either a 5 or 12 week Freedom From Diets class. I think that they have changed it to just the 5 week program now so that should save you some time. Then you have to use those skills that you learned and keep your food diaries and meet with the Nutritionist and Case worker once a month or so (you will need to push to get appointments that often because they aren't very structured and will rely on you making the appointments to keep up with your progress). They will evaluate you (really just seeing how much weight you lose during that time) and then send you through some various testing to prep you for surgery. I think they require a sleep study and Blood Gas Analysis pretty early on in their program as well.

I personally don't know how long the process will go because I decided on a procedure that Kaiser doesn't do so I left the program. The Freedom From Diets (which might now be called Weight Management or something similar) class is informative but all common sense things.

Good Luck to you!

Courtney

If you live in Springfield, you should go to the Oregon Bariatric Center it's in the Riverbend Pavillion. That's where I had my lapband and get fills. I don't actually know how much a fill would be but you could call them 541-335-2700