How to schedule
Hello All,
I began my 6 month supervised diet on December 4. I need help with some guess-timations on when I might be looking at surgery dates. My work life includes many meetings and public speaking engagements, so I am trying to figure out when to "block off" some time. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Anne
Depends. Are you in good health? A fast healer?
I only took off 1 week from work when I had my surgery, and then went back full time. I have an office job and it was pretty easy for me to go back quickly.
My suggestion would be to go ahead and pick a date with your surgeon's office and get on the schedule.....then, schedule the rest of your life around that. Only you can determine what a good window of down time is depending on how you heal, and of course you can't plan for unknowns like complications, but they are rare.
I will say this: I started exercising when I began my 6 month supervised diet. I think being a regular exerciser by the time of my surgery really made my recover much easier. If you can, go ahead and start.....it can't hurt to start that good habit now-the sooner the better.
Wishing you much success on your journey!
Thanks for the reply....I am actually more concerned with the lag time between whatever the insurance company will count as 6 "months" supervised diet (is it exactly 6 months from the first visit?) and their approval, etc. I am going to assume 4 weeks off, but I have started exercising, so I could go back sooner....but my brain is struggling to figure out which month....I meet with the surgeon on the 21st, maybe she will be able to give me some insight.
Anne
Ok-let me spell out exactly how mine worked......the insurance coordinator at my surgeon's office gave me this heads up, and not doing this lands many folks in the reject pile.
"6 months supervised diet" ends on the 7th visit. For example, the first visit was December 4th. You will need to visit the doctor on the 4th of the month every month for January, February, March, April, May and June. The June visit is visit number 7-the last one...and make sure THAT one is on the 4th of the month or after. Some folks try to "accelerate" the process by moving the appointment up each month.....BCBS would not tolerate that....my visits had to be one month apart, and the most important, the 7th, had to be on the day of the month or later than the very first one, with 6 full months elapsed in between.
Once I finished that last visit, I took the paperwork to the surgeons office straight from the doctor, they submitted it, and had verbal approval from my insurance in 3 days. Once I got the approval letter in the mail (within a week) I was scheduled.
Part of it depends on how your surgeon schedules your other required appointments. I was able to do to my psych evaluation, sleep study, EGD, etc. to be done during my supervised diet time. If you can do all of that by the end of the 6 month diet, and they submit everything to your insurer within a week of finishing the diet, and your insurance approves you within 7 days, then I would say mid June would be the soonest. It also depends on your surgeon's surgery schedule. Some people are scheduled for surgery 1 - 3 months out from their approved date. My date was about 2 months out from my approval date.
I personally started my process in Oct, of last yr. I started my 6 months of visits in jan 2012. They submitted my paperwork by july, then I had surgery mid Sep. So if you are trying to plan it out, a safe time frame would be end of aug. I would set it up 2-3 months out from the time you finish your doctors stuff. Also you can call your surgeon and ask what days of week he does RNY, and if he is taking any time off in that 30 day window you want to set for your self.
