BariatricPal Hospital MX Q&A: Safe Bariatric Surgery

My heart breaks for morbidly obese people whose health plans do not cover bariatric surgery. With health plans that exclude weight loss surgery, if they deem it a medical necessity then you may be able to successfully fight for surgery coverage. I don't know what the success rate is for people who attempt this but it is surely worth trying.

Since many health insurance plans exclude weight loss surgery, this leaves people faced with the decision to self-pay for bariatric surgery or to forgo what could very well be a life-saving procedure given the devastating effects of obesity and obesity-related diseases on health. Accordingly, more people are opting to self-pay and turning to Mexico for bariatric surgery at facilities like the BariatricPal Hospital MX in Tijuana. That is because the cost of weight loss surgery in Mexico can be significantly reduced from the costs for surgery in the USA and Canada.

For others, the preconceived notion of Mexico being an undeveloped country filled with sub-par "everything" and drug cartels has banished any thoughts of traveling there for bariatric surgery. But I can tell you from personal experience that Mexico is not like that.

I drove through Mexico last year from the US border to the Belize border, throughout the Yucatan Peninsula and most of the eastern states. I spent about 5-weeks living there. And I even received healthcare from a gastroenterologist at StarMedica in Merida. It was a very good experience... a wonderful experience. And both the healthcare and the facility were on-par with -- if not better than -- that which I have experienced in the USA.

Mexico is largely like the USA with cities and infrastructure and shopping malls and hospitals. Of course there are isolated rural areas, but I did not encounter problems with safety even there. What I did encounter was a very warm and friendly culture that I would one day like to revisit.