Question:
Does Insurance count these as medically supervised diets?

I have been on several diets with diet pills in the past. They were Jenny Craig and one called Weight Matters. Im not sure I can get records from them, but I do have the pill bottles and a few check copies. I have also tried hypnosis, accupuncture among other things. If I cant get the actual records of the diet pill diets (hardly medically SUPERVISED...I never saw more than a PA) will insurance deny? My BMI is ~50. Starvation + maniacal exercise is the only way Ive ever lost more than ~30 lbs...and NEVER kept it off. Thanks :-)    — Julie M. (posted on July 18, 2001)

July 18, 2001
Every insurance is different. It wouldn't hurt to get your records together though from those places. If your insurance is one of the harder ones to get approved through you may need all the amunition you can get. It never hurts... God bless you on your journey for surgery..
   — Elizabeth D.

July 18, 2001
I found it was very helpful to go through the exercise of writing out the history of every diet I had ever been on. I was amazed, once it was down in black and white, to see just what an impressive list it was. I had been dieting for 40 years, and when I really took my time and thought about it (I did this over a period of about a week) I could recall, with reasonable accuracy how many times I had been on Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. List the diets with the dates....your starting weight (approx. if you have no written record...same goes for dates ie: "fall of 1978" was close enough,) and how much you lost, and what the diet consisted of. If it was from a book "Fit or Fat", "Atkins Diet" whatever...put it down on paper. What the insurance company wants to see is that you HAVE TRIED to lose weight. After I had everything down as accurately as I could remember it, I started calling around for records. Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, the Diet Center, all said they would send them to me....however, none of them did. As it turned out, I didn't need them. My Doctor looked at my list and whistled. She said, "wow, you've tried everything, several times!". Even though I had no comorbidities and a BMI of 40, I was approved after the first letter. I believe it was my diet history that did the trick. Good luck.
   — Anne G.

July 18, 2001
I was denied due to 'lack of medically supervised weight loss attempts'. I did do WW and all the other 'get thin quick' diets and pills. I did take Phentermine for 5 months, but Cigna HMO didn't count that because 1. it wasn't perscribed by my PCP (by Psychiatrist wrote the script) and 2. because I wasn't weighed in monthly. I have been on Meridia (under the care of my PCP) for 4 months now and have 2 more to go. Cigna considers this 'medically supervised'. I also see a nutritionist every 6 weeks and show her my journal of every thing I eat daily and the caloric value of it. (1400/day as she suggests). So...good luck!
   — missesrita