Tricare Patients, over here!!!

Hey y'all. I had my surgery back in September and everything went great. This is actually about insurance-which I thought I was done with. I have Tricare Prime. They called my surgeon's office with approval for my surgery back in September. My surgeon's office in turn called me. We set the surgery for a week after they recieved my approval. I went in, everything went great, and I've been home for a couple months now. But the past couple days I got two things in the mail: 1) A letter from Tricare that said, "This is not a bill". It went on to show the amount the hospital had charged. Under amount paid, it said "$0.00". For reasons why, it said, "Obesity is not covered" or something. I don't have it in front of me. But that's the gist of it. 2) The first of what I suspect will be many bills from the hospital I had the surgery in. It said that Tricare had not sent either payment nor reason for nonpayment. Amount due: $4,964.87 Like I said, I have a feeling this will be the first of many. My question is this: If my surgeon's office recieved approval for the surgery-and they won't perform it unless you have the money upfront or insurance has approved-then why am I getting bills? Why is Tricare declining to pay now? Has anyone been through this? What should I do? I appreciate any help you may have. This is not the kind of thing you want in the mail before the holidays!

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