Question:
Hi, I am wanting to know if anyone has been approved through Aetna this year without

   — ravpotter (posted on July 5, 2003)

July 5, 2003
I am guessing your asking without a 6 month supervised diet. I was approved in March of this year and had to provide a copy of my chart from a Doctor who prescribed Phen-Phen and Redux diet pills back in 1998 for 7 months. They accepted that and I was approved in three weeks total. If you don't have the 6 months, go ahead and start the process and keep trying to send in everything you can think of and if nothing else you will have a jump start on your 6 months. Thats what I did and only had to put in 3 weeks. Good Luck! I had lap RNY on 4/22/2003 down 43 lbs and 49 inches.
   — Barbara S.

July 6, 2003
I received approval from Aetna this year, having surgery on July 9th. I did have 6 months of diet history within the last 2 years. A friend of mine also has Aetna and was approved this year and had a Weight Watchers diet 3 years ago and they counted that as her diet history. She was denied and then appealed it. Not sure if that's the question/answer you're looking for. Good luck!
   — Sasha A.

July 6, 2003
I recently had my surgery on May 21 of this year. Aetna EPO approved my surgery in one week. After one day, they asked for additional medical documentation. My PCP took 5 days to get it there and meanwhile I wrote a letter of diet history and medical necessity and sent it. Then I was approved within hours. All together it took one week. I wish you luck. And also Aetna even paid for my physo exam thats pretty good.
   — Kimberly E.

July 6, 2003
Hello Rochelle! I dont think you were done with your question but I'll go ahead and give you my Aetna PPO story anyway. *_* I started all my preperation in August 2002. I had my 1st consultation mid August and then proceeded from there with all the testing. Everything was sent for approval by mid November. Almost 1 month later they came back wanting more info.... they wanted a family history and a 5 yr supervised diet history. Well I did not have a 5 yr supervised diet history and the clinics I had used to go on diets had been closed, so I had no way of getting any documentation. While in the process of getting all I could together. (A matter of days) They just denied me cause I guess I took to long to get everything to them. I then decided to appeal. I got the family history and the diet history together. (I only had diets I had done on my own and a few I had done together with my friend while on Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.) I went to my old PCP and asked for all my medical records, which indicated my weight in and his recomendations of low salt, low carbs and excersize (I highlighted all of that). I went to current PCP and did the same. My old PCP, curent PCP, surgeon and my best friend who had also had surgery, each wrote a recomendation letter for me. I too wrote them a letter of my life history dealing with obesity and I included photos from the day I was born to the present. I figured that all of this paper work has to be "JUST WORK" for them, so a picture could help them out in seeing I was a REAL person with a life and problems just like them mayb. Hope I was able to help! *_* -85lbs 3.5 mos post op!
   — Dayanara A.

July 7, 2003
I have Aetna and was approved about 1.5 days after my surgeon's office submitted the request. The WLS program that my surgeon works with requested the history info at the beginning of my interactions with them. Plus, i did start seeing a nutritionist about 4 months b4 the approval. My high bmi (~55) and comorbidities may have influenced the speedy approval as well. That said, I strongly recommend working closely with a nutritionist pre-surgery. Doing so has helped me to become much more reflective about my eating and to begin some of the changes I'll need to make post-op. In short, I think Aetna' policy is a pretty good idea in most cases.
   — Kofi A.