SpecialK

I provided my surgeon's office with a copy of my WW booklet showing my weekly weigh in's plus each time I had gone to my PCP for physicals and things she would ask if I was doing anything to lose weight, and I'd tell her WW, exercise at the rec center, etc. so yes, WW log plus PCP doctor notes is a good combo but I don't think a WW booklet with weights is enough.

Most insurances say something like: BMI 40 alone or BMI of 35 plus co-morbidities like sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, arthritis or joint pain, plus prolonged evidence 3-5 years of medically documented weights. They can take an OB/GYN's records of weight since you said you had kids. Just some ideas. Keep hanging in there.

This helped me to print off about the first 6 or so pages and read them carefully sentence by sentence to see what it indicated I had to do. I had Aetna HMO also so I've been through those hoops and now waiting to see if I get approved once I know the surgeon's office has sent in what they had. See my other posts on what all I had to do. Clinical Policy Bulletin.doc

Debbie - glad you're okay now from that stuck episode. I remembered what you said from our first get together that some things are better eaten with something else like mashed potatoes to give you the moisture or lubrication to help things go down. Good lesson for all of us to keep hearing to chew, chew, chew. Ladies all -- here is a good nutrition thing from me journaling my food before surgery - I went out to a Mexican restaurant with my brother for his birthday yesterday and got a combination plate that had 1 chicken enchilada and 1 chicken burrito, no Beans or rice, just the shredded lettuce and a little bit of shredded cheese on top. When I looked up a chicken burrito is was like 900 calories and the chicken enchilada was less than half of that...go figure..I thought they were pretty close to each other in calories.

I've had good luck ordering from Plus size clothing - Fashion for Plus Size women at Roaman's and Plus size clothing at Woman Within® from the Limited group where they can do expedited shipping for you on swim suits.

Hippiegirl - what kind of insurance do you have? That would be out of possibility for me to pay upfront and then wait until insurance reimbursed me.

Ladyroz - congratulation on your banding and progress. Keep us posted under the NE 1 been banded at Mt. Carmel thread. There is a group of us with Mt. Carmel surgeons.

I'm sorry to see the Future Ads coming soon on the right hand side now. I guess it was inevitable that someone would want to advertise on here. I hope this doesn't mean you are selling our personal information to those advertisers.

Welcome Angie -- There is another Angie that goes by Thinner Me on this forum. Check out her posts under the NE 1 Been Banded at Mt. Carmel - she is working to get banded at Barix also and she's close to gettting there. Also see the Columbus get together planned for February at Polaris mall. Good luck and hang in there. Its taken me since October 2007 to get through all the paperwork things and medical clearances insurance requires and they are trying to submit to insurance for me this week.

I use My Food Diary :: Online Calorie Counter w/ Diet Journal & Exercise Log and I find it really helpful. You can take any item they have in the system and modify it and say instead of 1 piece of bread, .5 or .25 and it adjusts and calculates the partial item calories. Its got nice graphs and also has a discussion forum. Runs $9 a month.

Welcome to the journey. The 1st seminar is an easy thing - maybe lasts an hour to 90 minutes. They held the Mt. Carmel one at an auditorium and there were alot of people and it wasn't intimidating at all. There is a Riverside banded group that can tell you more about their sessions but what I was told was that the Dr. who heads that program went around and personally introduced himself to almost everyone who came. There is an Insurance forum section in this web site. On that section, you can find all the people who have the same kind of insurance you do and see what they've been through in getting approved, submitted. What part of Ohio are you from? Under the "N E 1 been Banded at Mt. Carmel" thread under Ohio's forum I have posted a detailed list of what I've been through so far. Its been 6 months since I went to my first forum like you are talking about and now the surgeon's office is getting ready to submit for insurance approval this coming week. Hopefully I'll know this month if I am approved. Then it involves a 2 week pre-op diet before your surgery date so I am hoping to be banded maybe in February.

Okay, friends I think my surgeon's office bariatric coordinator is going to be making the first try at insurance submission for approval for lap band surgery. I'll recap here what I thought the packet had to have in it and we'll see if its enough. 1. PCP records from 5 years showing height, weight (thus BMI calc) and any progress notes about talking to me about weight loss. 2. Cardiology, sleep, and Psychology clearance letters. 3. Hospital nutritionist appointment documentation and 2nd nutritionist appt 1 month later. (may need to finish a 3rd one?) 4. BMI over 40 so that's not the issue. Wish me luck! I'll let you know by posting how many days it takes from the time they confirm they have submitted until we have Aetna's decision.

I am generally organized about things when I really want to get something done but then other things, I let it slide and keep looking at that 'mess' or laundry and thinking, I really should get organized and get this done but then...something else seems more interesting or more important. I am a project manager for IT (information technology) projects in my job, so I have to do a huge amount of planning, follow-up, and tracking progress on big projects with sometimes hundreds of people and months of work to get done so managing my own project to be sure I got all my clearances nailed and ready for insurance approval was a process for sure, but I just kept ticking things off my To Do list. Now I have to wait and see how the bariatric coordinator does with getting things submitted. I tried to call my insurance to be sure I could see what all they said to do and they said, just let the surgeon's office handle it, so I am. I figure the surgeon's office has dealt with Aetna before so I'm going to try to chill out and wait and see how it goes for a couple weeks. I have to admit to being kind of a control freak on things that are really important to me too so sitting back and depending on someone else is something I have to just trust them on doing their job well. Was thinking about the posts from those who have been to Mt. Carmel and those who have been to Riverside and its clear the ones who went to Riverside liked the extra hands on help and that is great but I'm in the same boat Debbie was that my insurance only had Mt. Carmel's doctors on their list of In-Network providers so choosing a non-network doctor would mean alot more cost to me which I just can't do. Just goes to show, customer service and personal attention does still matter. I had a really good experience with Mt. Carmel East and Mt. Carmel West before for my family members. I had a brother who was very seriously ill and his life was saved at the last moment twice at Mt. Carmel West, once for a ruptured bleeding stomach ulcer and a second time for a brain aneurysm. Anyway, I felt good about putting myself in the hands of the Mt. Carmel staff for this bariatric surgery based on my own good experience in October having laparascopic gallbladder surgery outpatient at Mt. Carmel East and I breezed through that experience.

I just laughed and laughed when this one was attached to an email from a friend because I've been to so many doctors and things lately where I've had to get undressed and its not my favorite thing at all. By the last one I did, it was like "so what, they have seen it all before me!" Enjoy!

Same here. Been on Prozac and went through the 400 question psych eval test and it was no big deal. You'll be fine. Don't skip meds as that can cause other issues.

I had a form last year sometime to complete and send in and I was just saying to my Mom this past weekend that nothing ever came of that. Ha! Got a big packet of Jury Duty summons stuff for serving from February 1-29th! Whoa! Not just 2 weeks of jury duty but a whole month of having to report every day (I'm assuming just Monday-Friday) but my boss is going to have heartburn when I deliver this news to him tomorrow. I think its the kind of thing where I can go in the morning and if they don't need me that day, they turn me lose. Fortunately I work downtown almost next door to the court I have to report to, so the parking and logistics aren't an issue for me. I'll have to let you know how it goes. I'm not even sure what kind of cases are heard by juries on the US District Court level or who the judges are. Guess I'll find out soon. :huh2:

http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/wOoTcHD/ Ginnee-- I'll personal message you with the passcode so you can keep editing this ticker Cut and Paste this into your Signature under User CP Panel

18. 2008 - Jan 18th - Psychological clearance sent to Mid Ohio Surgical Associates surgeon's office. Dietician appt and PCP appointment documentation from January appointments sent also. They think they can submit for insurance approval NOW! so my new revised goal is 19. January 22nd - Submit for Aetna Insurance Approval 20. January 29th - Receive Approval (for my birthday gift!) 21. ??? Maybe February banding????

I had Aetna insurance and on their website they had a Search for a Doctor on the plan option. I did a search on Specialists, Psychologists and I had to be sure it was someone with a Phd not just an LISW, MA degree for it to be what was accepted. I think only the Phd psychologists are qualified to administer and interpret the test. So, check for a specialist on your plan, to save the most money you can on insurance covering it, and if nothing else, use the Aetna web site and see what comes up for Tennessee on psychologists in your area as one idea.

Today is the day I face my Primary Care Physician at 1pm to discuss what I've been doing for the past 75 days since I saw her for my physical. She's been my regular doctor for years now but about 3 years ago when I tried to talk with her about gastric bypass surgery, she was very negative about it and just told me to keep on trying WW and getting exercise. She didn't feel I could live with the complications and lifestyle required of a GB patient back then and after I thought about it and prayed about it, I had to agree. The complications she said she was seeing with patients was also very troubling to her and was a factor for me too. I don't know how educated she is about lapband surgery, the diet, the complications rate, etc. but I'm going to do my best to make sure she understands this is important to me and I'd like her to continue to be my PCP after the surgery and keep me healthy otherwise like she's done all these years. My surgeon Dr. Price offered to call and talk with her about the procedure if she wanted more info so I thought that was great.

Got my psych clearance today -- Yippee! She said she'd have the report faxed over to the Mid Ohio Surgical Office by this Friday before she leaves on vacation. Angie - are you a quilter? You mentioned making a quilted bag to take on your cruise. I love quilting! I'd even like to think about taking a quilters cruise sometime.

Congratulations for having courage to start again and call your doctor!

For those who aren't familiar with the exits off I-71 there is a Polaris Parkway exit and a Gemini Parkway exit north of the outerbelt of Columbus I-270. I recommend getting off at the Gemini Parkway exit and heading WEST and you'll see the Great Indoors on the left and a big CostCo on the right. Keep going and enter the mall parking lot on the left by Great Indoors and drive all the way up to the area by the store doors and if you look, you should see an entrance for Food Court or Food Mall just to the left of the entrance doors for Great Indoors. Hope this helps for those not familiar with that mall or the freeway exits. Sometimes Mapquest only helps so much.

Yep, I'll bring along the poster I made and a helium balloon so you can all look for the balloon to find us. Last meeting we were just in front of Great Indoors where it was a little less noisy and less crowded but just pick a spot, we'll find each other with the balloon.

Chemical stress test bill came in the mail yesterday - what a shocker! It was over $2500 and my part that I have to pay is $450. Ouch! That is an example of an insurance company driving a doctor to order an expensive test that really wasn't necessary given I had a normal EKG and no heart trouble symptoms. Next up, what will be the co-pay amount that isn't covered for an echocardiogram? Stay tuned....