Well I figured it was time to start documenting everything, so here it goes. On March 10, my best friend was telling me about how we should get the lapband to lose weight. Now being a member of weight watchers for many years at first I was very against the idea (if you even mention it on the weight watchers boards you get yelled at!) Then I decided that maybe I should look into this and talk to my doctor. So I say my doctor on March 14 and she said that she thought it was a good idea. I called the surgeons office to sign up for his seminar on March 29 and the moment he started explaining everything I knew this was for me. He gave us a packet of everything we would need to do as far as clearances so I started making appointments. Here is my timeline:
April 2 Psychologist
April 3 Gastro (need endoscopy)
April 4 Cardiologist (need echo)
April 5 Chest xray
April 11 Pulmonary
April 16 Echo
April 23 Endoscopy
April 23 Nutritionist 1st appt
May 8 Nutritionist 2nd appt
June 12 Nutritionist 3rd appt
June 10 Surgeon!!!!!!!!!
June 16 Hospital bariatric coordinator
So before I started this process I had called my insurance company HIP and asked what the requirements were and I was told it had to be medically necessary (yeah no six months) then on May 5 I just happened to be on HIPs website when I see that bariatric surgery was revised on April 15, 2008. I almost died when I saw that. According to their website you now needed six months diet. I called HIP and the girl had no idea what bariatric surgery was and I had to give her the link to the website and of course she had no clue and said whatever it says on the website is what it is. Well I was pissed. So I told the nutritionist this and she said ok then come to me for six months. Then I thought did I just open up a can of worms? Although I didn't want to not say anything and get everything else done and then have to start over with a six month diet. So I figured let me just tell her. Then I decided I should probably go talk to the surgeon, even though he doesn't want to see you until you have every clearance including the nutritionist. So I get the appointment and tell him everything about the insurance and he tells me that he probably won't be taking my insurance much longer! I almost cried. He then tells me that he was going to submit everything I had up until this point and for me to get the nutritionist to sign off on the three visits I went to.
Well 2 days later I was approved. I could not believe it. Thank God. My surgery date is July 16 and I couldn't be happier.
