As i am starting this journey and have lots of questions. I am trying to read through all of the post on the forum board but still have some questions that i cant find the answers to.

1. My insurance requires 6 months supervised diet. I am currently at 43.5 BMI, what happens if I fall under that BMI during the supervised Diet? Do they say you no longet meet the BMI requirement and drop me?

2. Along with the BMI they require one comorbidity, I dont have high blood pressure, not sure of sleep appnea I am kind of clueless as to what other comorbities there are? And help with that???

3. I have an appointment with Dr. DeBarros in phoenix, its a four hour drive. Will I have to have all of my test done with him or can my PCP do them for me and send the results down?

Thanks for reading! I should probably open a thread in the forums on this but want to document my journey and figured i would use the blog for this purpose. Have a great day all:thumbup:

Hi Waynooo,

You can call your insurance company and find out the answer to that specifically, but what mine told me is that it's the BMI at the start of this process that matters. MY BMI will certainly fall below the threshold before my six months are up - BMI is only 40.4. But it should be ok because my BMI was high enough when I started everything. There are also things like your height that might play a factor. I am 5'6" and 7/8. Everyone has always rounded that up to 5'7". But for this, we are using 5'6". Using 5'6", my BMI becomes 42. Should still fall below that, but it was a better starting point.

As for comorbidities, is that what your insurance company is saying? 40 AND a comorbidity? From what I'm running across, over 40 - that's enough. If you are between 35 and 40, then you need the comorbidity. Again, I'd call your insurance company and hear it directly from them. When you go in for your consult they should have those answers then as well.

I would imagine you can have your tests done with your PCP and you can hand carry the results to your surgeon. I am using my PCP for some things but will be primarily using my surgeons office - as in my case, the surgeon's office is closer than the PCP - 5 miles instead of 10 with some dreadfully long traffic lights. :tongue:

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the good info! This site really has ALLOT of good information!